GOBERT, Pierre

French painter. He was the son of the sculptor Jean Gobert (1627-81) and nephew of the sculptor André Gobert (1635-72), who made the retable for the high altar at St Jean-Baptiste, Nemours; his brother was another sculptor, Jean-Baptiste Gobert (d after 1723), whose best-known work was a bronzed plaster equestrian statue of Louis XIV (destroyed) made in 1685 for the Duc de Richelieu’s château at Rueil. It is not certain whether this family was related to the architect Thomas Gobert.

Pierre Gobert joined the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture (reçu) in 1701 as a portraitist. He became the preferred painter of the nobility at the court of Louis XIV in the last years of the king’s reign, as demonstrated by the numerous portraits he had painted.