Charles Le Brun, a French painter, born in Paris in 1619, died there, Feb. 12, 1690. He studied in the school of Simon Vouet, and at the age of 15 produced a picture of "Diomedes devoured by his own Horses." He afterward studied under Nicolas Poussin in Rome, and for about six years devoted himself to the study of the antique and of the old masters. Having returned to Paris, he was in 1648 admitted to the newly founded royal academy of painting and sculpture, of which he subsequently became president. At the recommendation of Colbert, Louis XIV. appointed him his first painter, and conferred upon him the direction of the manufactory of Gobelins tapestry. He painted a grand series of pictures, now at Versailles, illustrating the military triumphs and public works of the reign of Louis XIV., executed in a half classical, half allegorical style, the monarch being represented in a Roman toga with the flowing peruke of the 17th century, and with other incongruities and anachronisms. For the Louvre he painted a series entitled " The Battles of Alexander," which are considered among his finest works, and are well known through the engravings of Gerard Audran. Another of his pictures, "Mary Magdalen washing the Feet of the Saviour in the House of Simon the Pharisee," was so highly esteemed that in 1815 the emperor of Russia accepted it in exchange for the celebrated " Marriage at Cana," by Paul Veronese, now in the Louvre.