Pierre Joseph Lafontaine (18 July 1758 – 12 January 1835) was a Belgian painter, art historian and art dealer. He was most senior of the experts to the royal museums.Revue belge, t. 1er, Liège (lire en ligne [archive]), p. 72
Life Born in Courtrai, he initially trained in that city's academy, where he studied under Jean Douelle (1755-1793), before joining the Académie Royale de Peinture in Paris. Greuze and Denon became his patrons in Paris. He exhibited at the Louvre between 1789 and 1806, presenting eight church interiors and one other painting in 1789, eleven paintings in 1791 and two church interiors in 1793, though the French Revolution prevented him from following an official career. He therefore became an art dealer working for French museums, travelling all across Europe in search of paintings, especially the Netherlands, where he acquired over one hundred paintings at public sales. Benjamin Peronnet and Burton B. Fredericksen, Répertoire des tableaux vendus en France au xixe siècle, vol. I 1801-1810, t. I, Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty trust, 1998, 1470 p. (ISBN 0-89236-497-1) For example, he found Rembrandt's The Woman Taken in Adultery in Belgium. L'Artiste : Journal de la littérature et des beaux-arts, t. 8, p. 296
He did paint some architectural works, notably church and palace interiors with figures added by Demarne, Swebach and Taunay, and was heavily influenced by the work of the Neefs and Stenwijck families, gaining the nickname Lafontaine Peterneefs. Works by him are now in museums in Avignon, Orléans, Dijon, Refers to a painting at the musée des beaux-arts de Dijon on base Joconde : Interior of a Gothic Church, 1785. the Herzogliches Museum in Gotha, Courtrai, Lille, Drawing in the collection of the Palais des beaux-arts de Lille on RMN : View of the Spire of Bayeux Cathedral. the Musée Carnavalet, Watercolour, Musée Carnavalet on SIAF : Alexandre Lenoir Defending the Royal Tombs at Saint-Denis from the Revolutionaries (1793). the Louvre, Painting at the Louvre : Interior of a Gothic Church. at the Musee des Arts Décoratifs. He died in Paris in 1835.
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