Cleopatra's Banquet

Gérard de Lairesse
1675–1680
Oil on canvas, 74 x 95.5 cm.
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
G�rard de Lairesse, Cleopatra

DE LAIRESSE, Gerard
September 1640 or 1641–June 1711)

De Lairesse was born in Liège and was the second son of painter Renier de Lairesse (1597–1667). His broad range of talent included music, poetry, and the theatre. He was perhaps the most celebrated Dutch painter inhe period following the death of Rembrandt. His treatises on painting and drawing, Grondlegginge der teekenkonst (1701) and Groot Schilderboek (1707), were highly influential on 18th-Century painters like Jacob de Wit. Students of de Lairesse included the painter Jan van Mieris. He died in Amsterdam.