Michel Dorigny, engraver, part of a French family of painters, draughtsmen and printmakers. He served his apprenticeship with Georges Lallemant and from 1638 was associated with Simon Vouet, in the following decade making etchings after about 80 of his works (e.g. ceiling paintings for the chapel of the Hôtel Séguier, Paris). He was also active as a painter and was one of Vouet's principal collaborators on his altarpieces and decorative schemes (e.g. staircase of the Hôtel Hesselin, Paris) until the death of the Premier Peintre in 1649. The previous year he had married Vouet's second daughter. Dorigny also made a score of prints of his own, and a series of six Bacchanales (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale) indicates the style of the artist at the time of his close association with Vouet. The composition of one of these Bacchanales is repeated in the decoration of the arcading of a room in the Hôtel de Ville at Port-Marly, near Paris. This decorative scheme, originally in the château of Colombes, Hauts-de-Seine, has thus been attributed to Dorigny. It represents the Four Seasons, with a ceiling showing Daybreak and the Dew. Dorigny's style in these canvases was directly influenced by that of Vouet, but his figures are heavier and more rounded, his colouring livelier, contrasting with earthier flesh tones. A group of paintings illustrating the Story of Diana (two Paris, Petit Palais) are also probably by him. Paris guides of the 17th and 18th centuries associate Dorigny's name with the execution of a number of prestigious decorative schemes, including the hôtel of the Abbé de la Rivière, the Hôtel Hesselin and the Hôtel Amelot de Bisseuil, but no traces of these works survive. He was one of the principal collaborators with Simon Vouet and probably the best engraver of his works. After Vouet's death, he became an independent painter of considerable reputation. Had he not died at a relatively young age, he might have rivalled Charles Le Brun as an important history and decorative painter during the reign of Louis XIV. His sons Louis Dorigny and Nicolas Dorigny were also painters and printmakers. //