(1674 - 1734)
Alexis-Simon Belle was born in Paris; the son of portrait painter Jean Belle. He trained with his father and then with François de Troy, a painter at the exiled court of James VII and II at St Germain-en-Laye. After the death of the exiled King, he continued to work for his son, James Stuart. In 1700 he won the Prix de Rome but remained in France to continue with Jacobite commissions. In 1703 he was elected a member of the Académie Royale de Peinture et Sculpture. Demand for portraits of Stuart was so great that by 1706 he was running his own atelier. In 1714, he joined the new Jacobite court in Bar-le-Duc, north-eastern France. He also completed commissions for the French court and examples of his work are in the collection at Versailles.
