{{Short description|Polish portrait painter (1741–1819)}} {{Infobox artist | name = Alexander Kucharsky | image = Alexander Kucharski.jpg | imagesize = | caption = Alexander Kucharski (1797) | birth_name = Alexander Kucharsky | birth_date = {{birth date|1741|3|18|df=y}} | birth_place = Warsaw, Poland | death_date = {{Death date and age|1819|11|5|1741|3|18|df=y}} | death_place = Paris, France | field = Painter | training = | movement = | works = Louis XVII of France<br/>Countess of Artois | patrons = French court }} '''Alexander Kucharsky''' (18 March 1741 – 5 November 1819)<ref>[http://gennotes.150m.com/montjoie.html Genealogical Notes and Anecdotes: L'oriflamme de St.-Denis] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080106114652/http://gennotes.150m.com/montjoie.html |date=2008-01-06 }} at gennotes.150m.com (accessed 29 December 2007)</ref> also '''Alexandre Kucharsky''', was a Polish portrait painter who spent his adult life in France. He himself used the spelling '''Kucharsky''',<ref name=sig>See signature at Marie Antoinette, miniature by Kucharsky, 1790</ref> but '''Kucharski''' is also often used. In the past, in France, the name has been given as '''Couaski'''.
==Early life== Kucharsky was born in Warsaw. As a boy, he was a page to King Stanisław II Augustus, the last elected ruler of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.<ref name=musee>[http://www.museelouisxvii.com/kucharsky.htm Le peintre KUCHARSKY] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080109040908/http://www.museelouisxvii.com/kucharsky.htm |date=2008-01-09 }} at museelouisxvii.com (accessed 28 December 2007)</ref> He trained first as an artist in Warsaw, in the studio of the famous painter Marcello Bacciarelli.<ref name=musee/> With a bursary from King Stanisław Augustus, he then travelled to Paris to work under Joseph-Marie Vien and Carle van Loo at the Académie Royale, from 1760 to 1769.
==Work== The king of Poland wanted Kucharsky to train as a historical painter, but instead he became a portrait artist, thus losing the king's patronage. From 1776 to 1778, Kucharsky was in the service of the Princes de Condé.<ref name=musee/>
Kucharsky liked to paint half-length portraits in pastels or in oils, but he also worked in gouache and sometimes painted miniatures. His clients were mostly from the French and Polish aristocracy.<ref name=musee/> The latter had increased in numbers in France as a result of the alliance between King Louis XV and Marie Leszczyńska.<ref name=musee/>
After the departure from the French court of Élisabeth-Louise Vigée-Le Brun in 1789, Kucharsky became painter to Queen Marie Antoinette.<ref name=musee/> As well as painting her portrait and the royal children, he also painted Marie-Louise, princesse de Lamballe, the comte d'Artois, the countess of Artois, and Catherine the Great of Russia.<ref name=musee/>
Kucharsky's best-known work today includes his portraits of the doomed French royal family, especially the future Louis XVII. The final portrait, painted in 1793 of Marie Antoinette, was sold at auction by Piasa on 21 May 2003 and is attributed to Kucharsky.<ref>[http://www.artnet.com/Artists/LotDetailPage.aspx?lot_id=38DF88D417535523 Portrait de Marie-Antoinette au temple] at artnet.com (accessed 30 December 2007)</ref>
When signing his work, the artist used the spelling "Kucharsky".<ref name=sig/>
==Later years== Throughout the years of the French Revolution, Kucharsky's allegiance remained with the ''ancien régime''. In retirement he lived near Paris at Sainte-Périne, living on a pension granted by Louis XVIII. He died in Paris.
==Selected paintings== <gallery class="center" heights=200 widths=140> Image:Louis Charles of France5.jpg|Louis Charles, Dauphin of France, 1789, now in the Palace of Versailles Image:Alexander_Kucharski,_La_Reine_Marie-Antoinette_(années_1790).jpg|Marie Antoinette around 1790 File:Marie Joséphine Louise de Savoie, comtesse de Provence.jpg|Marie Josephine Louise of Savoy Image:Kucharski Portrait.JPG|Portrait of a Woman (lost during Second World War) </gallery>
==See also== *List of Polish painters
==Footnotes== {{reflist}}
==External links== {{Commons category-inline}} * [http://www.artnet.com/artist/682614/alexander-kucharski.html Alexander Kucharski] at artnet.com * [https://web.archive.org/web/20080106075327/http://pere-lachaise.bleublog.ch/p9.html Alexandre Kucharski (1ère division)] at pere-lachaise.bleublog.ch
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Kucharsky, Alexander}} Category:1741 births Category:1819 deaths Category:Painters from Warsaw Category:18th-century Polish–Lithuanian painters Category:18th-century male artists Category:19th-century Polish painters Category:19th-century Polish male artists Category:Polish portrait painters Category:Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery Category:Polish male painters Category:Early modern Polish art