Coypel [key], family of French painters. Noël Coypel, 1628–1707, director of the Académie de France à Rome and later of the Académie royale de péinture et de sculpture in Paris, was employed on the decorations of the palaces of the Louvre, Tuileries, Fontainebleau, and Versailles. One of his best-known paintings is the Martyrdom of St. James (Notre-Dame de Paris). He was succeeded as director of the Académie royale by his son, Antoine Coypel, 1661–1722, who was made court painter in 1716. His Aeneid series, painted for the Palais-Royal, are among the foremost expressions of high baroque decoration in France. His work combined the pedantry of classical taste with the melodrama of baroque trompe-l'œil (illusionistic) effects. He was also an accomplished etcher.
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