The seventeenth century has always been considered the golden agethe grand siecleof French culture. The reigns of Louis XIII and Louis XIV witnessed an unprecedented flowering of literature and philosophy, of music, architecture, sculpture, and painting. Some of the greatest names in the history of art belong to this period: Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorraine, as well as Georges de La Tour, the Le Nain brothers, and Charles Le Brun. Yet the...