Life of ENGUERRAND CHARONTON

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  Enguerrand Charonton (or Quarton), French painter. His career is unusually well documented for a provincial artist of his date (he was active in Aix, Arles, and Avignon), but there are only two extant works that are certainly by him. These are the Virgin of Mercy (1452) in the Muse Cond at Chantilly, painted in collaboration with an obscure artist called Pierre Villatte, and the Coronation of the Virgin (1454) in the Muse de l Hospice at Villeneuve-les-Avignon. They are both highly impressive works, uniting Flemish and Italian influence and having something of the monumental character of the sculpture of Charonton s region. Indeed, they show Charonton to have been a painter of such commanding stature that there is an increasing tendency to attribute to him the celebrated Avignon Piet (Louvre, Paris), the greatest French painting of the period.