Brief Biography-Sébastien Bourdon was a painter and engraver from Montpellier, France. His initial instruction was from his father, a painter of glass. When he was eighteen, he went to Rome, where paintings by Claude Lorain, Van Lear, Andrea Sacchi, and Correggio influenced him, which he closely imitated. Bourdon painted historical and genre subjects, portraits, and landscapes. In 1652, he became a court painter to Queen Christina of Sweden and painted her image, which Nanteuil and Michel Lasne engraved. When Bourdon returned to France, portraiture was his focus. In 1648 he co-founded the Academy of Painting and Sculpture and was a rector until he died in Paris in 1671. His most noted work is the Martyrdom of Saint Peter, for the church of Notre Dame in Paris, now in the Louvre.