Louis-Michel van Loo
Self-portrait of van Loo
Born	(1707-03-02)2 March 1707 Toulon
Died	20 March 1771(1771-03-20) (aged 64) Paris

Louis-Michel van Loo (2 March 1707 – 20 March 1771) was a French painter.^[1]

Biography

He studied under his father, the painter Jean-Baptiste van Loo, at Turin and Rome, and he won a prize at the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in Paris in 1725. With his uncle, the painter Charles-André van Loo, he went to Rome in 1727–1732, and in 1736 he became court painter to Philip V of Spain at Madrid, where he was a founder-member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in 1752.

He returned to Paris in 1753, and painted many portraits of Louis XV of France. In 1765 he succeeded Charles-André as director of the special school of the French academy known as the École Royale des Élèves Protégés. In 1766 he made the portrait of the Portuguese statesman Sebastião de Melo, Marquis of Pombal.

Among his brothers were the painters François van Loo (1708–1732) and Charles-Amédée-Philippe van Loo (1719–1795).

Selected works

• 
  Portrait of Denis Diderot, 1767, Louvre Museum, Paris
• 
  Princess Ekaterina Dmitrievna Golitsyna, 1759, Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow
• 
  Nicolas Beaujon, Chaalis Abbey
• 
  The Comte de Maurepas wearing the sash of the Order of the Holy Spirit, c. 1732-35, Private collection
• 
  Louise Élisabeth of France, wife of l'infant Philippe, 1745, Prado Museum, Madrid
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  Michel-Etienne Turgot, 1739, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris
• 
  The Infanta Maria Teresa Rafaela of Spain, future Dauphine of France, c. 1745, Palace of Versailles
• 
  Venus, Mercury and Love, 1748, Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid.^[2]
• 
  Portrait of a young woman, 1759, Private collection
• 
  Portrait of Elisabeth Farnese, 1745, Palace of Versailles
• 
  Portrait of Louis XV of France, 1765, Palace of Versailles
• 
  Maria Vittoria of Savoy, 1742/1745, Castle of Racconigi
• 
  Portrait of Philip V, 1737, Royal Collections Gallery, Madrid
• 
  The Family of Philip V (1743), Prado Museum, Madrid