Alexis Peyrotte

Alexis Peyrotte was born in Mazan, in France, in 1699. He was appointed Peintre du Roi et Dessinateur pour les Meubles de la Couronne (Painter to the King and Designer of Furniture for the Crown) in 1749, in which capacity he designed textiles and furniture for Versailles and the other great French royal palaces. His work can now be seen in the palaces of Fontainebleau, Versailles and Choisy. Peyrotte specialised in painting delicate representations of birds, flowers, foliage and ornaments onto panels. Three of his greatest works were bought in France in the nineteenth century by Europe's wealthiest family, the Rothschilds, and shipped to be installed in splendour in the Blue Sitting Room at the great new Rothschild house, Waddesdon, north of London. Peyrotte died in Paris in 1769.