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Lead Section
Louise Moillon (1610-1696) was a French still life painter in the Baroque era. During her lifetime, she became known as one of the most prominent still life painters due to her painting style. Moillon created about 40 artworks during her lifetime which are held in museums and private collections.

Life
Louise Moillon grew up in St–Germain-des-Prés district of Paris, a district known as a safe place for religiously persecuted protestants primarily from the southern Netherlands. Louise Moillon's father, Nicolas Moillon was a painter, art dealer, and member of the Académie de St Luc. Louise's father taught her the basics of painting before his death and when her mother remarried another artist, Francois Garnier, he helped expand Louise's painting knowledge. Louise married Etienne Girardot in the 1640s and did not paint as frequently after which could be due to household duties and the birth of her three children. The Revocation Edict of Nantes in 1685 discriminated on any religion other than Catholicism forcing people to convert and Louise's family was greatly affected with her children fleeing and husband sent to jail. After the revocation, no records of Louise producing work have been found. Louise lived during the Baroque era of painting which was a time where still life painting thrived, especially in the Netherlandish areas she resided in.

[side note addition on her brother Isaac Moillon was a part of the Académie Royale. ]

Painting Style
Louise Moillon specialized only in still life paintings primarily of fruits and flowers usually arranged on tables. She used Trompe l’oeil elements to give viewers an illusion and make her paintings realistic. Although Moillon painted still lifes, human figures sometimes appeared in the background of her pieces. The combination of people and still life was the first to be done by Moillon as well as another painter named Jacques Linard. Moillon's style uses elements from Flemish painting through Trompe l'oeil elements and the contrast of cool and warm toned colors combined with French genre painting shown through her compositional style.