Jean-Gaspard Heilmann

Jean-Gaspard Heilmann (c. 1718 – 27 September 1760) was an 18th-century French  painter, author of popular landscapes, historical scenes and fine portraits. He was the first Mulhouse painter who enjoyed a certain notoriety in Paris.

Biography
Born in Mulhouse, from a Mulhouse family documented since the 16th century, an orphan at a very young age, he was formed in Schaffhausen by the painter Hans Deggeller, then at Basel (Switzerland).

Noticed by the cardinal of Tencin, he followed him to Rome and executed many commissions for him. The French Ambassador to Rome took him to Paris in 1742. Heilmann lived there until his death and connected with the engraver Jean-Georges Wille and François Boucher, first painter of king Louis XV.

He died in Paris in 1760 at the age of 42.

Selected works

 * Portrait de femme (oil), 1748, Musée Magnin in Dijon
 * Portrait d'homme et son pendant Portrait de femme (1749), Musée des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg
 * Sous-bois (drawing), Musée Bonnat in Bayonne
 * Autoportrait en costume d'atelier (oil), Musée des beaux-arts de Mulhouse
 * Autoportrait en costume d'apparat (oil), c. 1750, Musée des beaux-arts de Mulhouse
 * Deux natures mortes, Musée des beaux-arts de Mulhouse