René Dudot (c.1650) - The Virgin and Child with Saint John the Baptist

René DUDOT
(active in Rouen and Paris between 1640 and 1659)
The Virgin and Child with little St. John the Baptist
H. 73 cm; L. 57.5 cm

René Dudot was most active in Rouen at the heart of the 17th century. Only twenty years of his life can be traced, thanks to records of baptisms and marriages. In 1640, he made his first appearance in Paris for the baptism of his daughter Anne, and other children were baptized in various Parisian churches until 1649. In 1646, he witnessed the marriage of a certain Nicolas Boutin, son of a master carpenter from Vernon in the Eure department. Does this detail reveal his Norman origins, which he abandoned to work in Paris? His name is followed each time by the titles "painter" and "master painter".

In 1651, René Dudot appears for the first time in known archives in Rouen, where on December 22 he was admitted to the city's Master of Painters program. The following year, he illustrated the frontispiece of a local edition of a "Vie de saint Romain", and in 1653 he produced nineteen vignettes for the "Immitation de la Vie de Jésus". Two years later, the fabrique of Rouen Cathedral stipulated in its accounts the payment of sixty livres for an altar painting dedicated to the new altarpiece in the sacristy.