a French painter and engraver. His chef d'œuvre is The Crucifixion of St. Peter made for the cathedral of Notre Dame. In spite of his poverty he managed to get to Rome in 1636; there he studied the paintings of Nicolas Poussin, Claude Lorrain and Caravaggio, until he was forced to flee in 1638, to escape denunciation by the Inquisition for his Reformed Protestant faith. Bourdon's facility rendered him adept at portraiture, whether in a dashing Rubens manner or in intimate, sympathetic bust-length or half-length portraits isolated against plain backgrounds, landscapes in the manner of Gaspard Dughet or capricci of ruins, mythological "history painting" like other members of Poussin's circle or the genre subjects of the Dutch Bamboccianti who were working in Rome.
