— Lesac, Portrait Painter
(fl. c. 1730)
Portrait Painter
From A Dictionary of Irish Artists 1913
A French artist who came to Dublin in 1730 where for a short time he practised as a portrait painter. "Mons. Lesac," says a contemporary newspaper, "a famous face-painter from Paris, lately arrived here to reside, is now drawing the most celebrated beauties in town and another notice refers to him as "the greatest master since Gervaise." Soon after his arrival he painted a portrait "at full length in a comick dress," of his countryman Lalauze, the opera dancer, who was then with Madame Violante, and afterwards set up as a dancing-master in Dublin. "This portrait," says a newspaper paragraph, "is reckoned by several curious persons to be better painted and a more lively and correct piece than has been done by any artist in this kingdom for many years past"; and the painter is referred to as "a young gentleman bred at the Academy at Paris and come over here within these few months." We hear nothing more of Lesac,—probably he did not obtain the patronage he expected and returned to Paris, and his works, even his "celebrated beauties," are now unknown.