Le chancelier Séguier

1660

The Gobelins Manufactory is founded

With Colbert he founds the Gobelins manufactory — at first a great school producing not only tapestries but every kind of furniture required for the royal palaces; Le Brun becomes its director and through it commands the industrial arts.

1660

Paintings for the king's triumphal entry into Paris

Le Brun's paintings for Louis XIV's triumphal entry into Paris fill the king with admiration; a year later, impressed also by his decorations at Vaux-le-Vicomte, he will commission a series on Alexander from him.

1661

A commission for a series on Alexander the Great

Louis XIV commissions from Le Brun a series of paintings from the history of Alexander the Great, meant to show the symbolic link between Alexander's deeds and the splendour of the Sun King; cartoons for the tapestry series “The History of Alexander the Great” (1664 — 1680s) are made from them, and the series is repeated eight times.

1661

He reorganises the Academy with Colbert

When Colbert takes control of the Academy, Le Brun helps him reorganise it so that its members work towards a theoretical foundation for a national French art.

1662

Louis XIV ennobles Le Brun

The king is so delighted with the first picture of the series, “Alexander and the Family of Darius”, that he at once ennobles the artist and grants him a pension of 12,000 livres, the same sum he had received yearly in Fouquet's service. From then on everything done in the royal palaces is directed by Le Brun.