Claude François (painter)

He was born in Amiens and studied drawing and the initial principals of art there, before moving to Paris to complete his training under Simon Vouet, whose style he closely copied throughout his life.

It was also there that he painted an Assumption of the Virgin as a high altarpiece for the Jacobin church back in Amiens, aged only twenty.

It is said that he fell from the top of pont du Cange into the river Somme aged fifteen and only escaped death by a kind of miracle and that he had seen the Virgin Mary and promised her to become a monk.

Hardouin de Perefixe, archbishop of Paris, made several offers to ordain him as a priest, but Luc was so humble that he wanted no more than the diaconate.

He stayed there a few months under the supervision of Jean Talon, painting his portrait and several religious works along with designing the reconstruction of Quebec's monastery and a future seminary there.