French painter. He first studied with his father, Médéric Fréminet (active 1550-1600), who is thought to have taught also Toussaint Dubreuil. Martin Fréminet painted a St Sebastian (untraced) for the church of St Josse in Paris before leaving for Italy around 1587. In Rome he became a friend of the Cavaliere d'Arpino, took an interest in the painting of Caravaggio and, above all, studied the work of Michelangelo. A number of untraced paintings that he executed in Rome were recorded in the form of engravings by Philippe Thomassin and published between 1589 and 1592. Fréminet spent some time in Venice and in Turin, where he worked for Duke Charles Emanuel I of Savoy. Henry IV summoned him back to France after the death of Dubreuil, who had been working for the King, and when Étienne Dumonstier II (c. 1540-1603) died in 1603, Fréminet became Peintre et Valet de Chambre du Roi. In 1606 he painted the Dauphin (the future Louis XIII), to whom he was also drawing-master, and in 1615 he received the Order of St Michel. The King also commissioned him to execute the decorations for the chapel of the Trinity at the château of Fontainebleau, following an iconography inspired by the Jesuit Louis Richeôme (1544-1625). From 1606 Fréminet painted the vault and the piers and supplied designs for the stuccoes executed by Barthélemy Tremblay (1568-1629), as well as for the high altar. Fourteen oval paintings representing scenes from the Life of Christ occupied the spaces between the windows; six oil sketches (Paris, Louvre) for these have recently been attributed to Fréminet. He died before completing work at the chapel. Other works by Fréminet in France include eight large canvases (Musée des Beax-Arts, Orléans) representing the four Doctors of the Church and the four Evangelists, which were apparently painted in accordance with an earlier design for the décor of the chapel of the Trinity. Fréminet's Oath of Hannibal is in the Musée Magnin in Dijon, while the Musée Départemental in Gap has his Adoration of the Shepherds, which was brought there from the hospice at Montgenevre and was probably painted in northern Italy. Fréminet's drawings and engravings are also to be found in a number of other institutions, including the Louvre, the École des Beaux-Arts and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, Christ Church Library in Oxford, the Hessisches Landesmuseum in Darmstadt and the Nasjonalgalleriet in Oslo. Fréminet enjoyed a high reputation among his contemporaries in Italy and France. His French works seem to be more monumental and tauter than those he executed in Italy, but their composition is essentially the same: two large figures in the foreground, one on either side, with almost the whole of the picture occupied by overlapping figures turned in on themselves in a highly dynamic spiral-like movement. These figures are depicted as powerfully muscular and are often clothed in flying draperies that add to the dramatic character of the scenes. It was probably this impression of heightened strength that earned Fréminet the nickname of the 'French Michelangelo'. He married the widow of Ambroise Dubois; their son, Louis Fréminet (1616-51), became keeper of the paintings in the chapel of the Trinity. He was also a painter, though none of his work is known. //