Born into a family of artists in Rouen, Jean Jouvenet received his first lessons in painting from his father, Laurent, before relocating to Paris in 1661. By 1669 he was working with Charles LeBrun on major decorative programs for the royal palaces. Jouvenet’s first major independent work, The Healing of the Paraplegic (destroyed), was commissioned in 1673 by the Goldsmiths Guild for its annual donation (so-called Mays) to the Cathedral of Notre Dame. His reception piece for the Académie Royale in 1675, Esther before Ahasuerus (Bourg-en-Bresse, Musée de l’Ain) reveals the artist’s interest in the works of Nicolas Poussin. Jouvenet painted portraits as well as mythological subjects for easel paintings and large, decorative schemes for Parisian hotels. He earned a reputation as the leading religious painter of his time through the huge canvases commissioned for the decoration of churches. The most important of these canvases were painted between 1695 and 1707, including those for the Church of the Invalides, the Chapel at Versailles, and Saint-Martin-des-Champs. In addition to his paintings for churches, he was commissioned to decorate the Parlement of Brittany, Rennes, in 1694 (in situ), and the ceiling of the Chambre des Enquêtes of the Parlement, Rouen, in 1715 (destroyed 1812). Jouvenet painted the latter with his left hand after his right was paralyzed. In 1695 the artist received a royal pension. He was elected director of the Académie Royale in 1705 and rector two years later. Although Jouvenet never went to Italy, his paintings reveal a familiarity not only with the Bolognese and Roman traditions but also with the colorism of the Venetian school. His nephew Jean Restout II also was a painter.