PETITOT, JEAN (1608-1691), enamel painter, was born at Geneva, a member of a Burgundian family which had fled from France on account of religious difficulties. His father, Faulle, was a wood carver; his mother's name was Etienette Royaume. Jean was the fourth son, and was appren ticed to a jeweller goldsmith named Pierre Bordier, with whom he struck up a close friendship. The two friends went into France, and eventually came to England with letters of introduction to Turquet de Mayern, physician to Charles I. For the king they made a St. George for the badge of the order and carried out many commissions for portraits ; amongst others preparing two large ones of Rachel de Ruvigny, countess of Southampton, now at Chatsworth, and Mary Villiers, duchess of Richmond and Len nox, dated 1643, at one time in the possession of the Crown and now in the Pierpont Morgan collection. On the execution of the king, Petitot left England for Paris with the royal household, while Bordier remained in England to carry out certain important commissions for Cromwell and the parliament.
In Paris Petitot entered into partnership with a goldsmith, Jacques Bordier, a cousin of Pierre; probably the enamel por traits attributed to Petitot were really the work of the two part ners, the actual drawing being the work of Petitot, while for the enamel process Bordier was mainly responsible. The two painters were given apartments in the Louvre, received numerous com missions from Louis XIV., and painted portraits of almost every person of importance in his brilliant court. The friendship be tween the two lasted for thirty-five years, and was only put an end to by Bordier's death. The enamellers rendered special political services in France for the republic of Geneva, and were practically regarded as the official representatives of the republic.
On the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 1685, pressure was brought to bear upon Petitot to change his religion. The king protected him as long as possible, and when he was arrested, with his niece, Annie Bordier, sent Bossuet to convert the old man.
Eventually Petitot abjured, but in 1687 he returned to Geneva, and was received back to the Huguenot communion. He died on April 3, 1691.
His eldest son JEAN LOUIS PETTTOT (1652-c. 173o), followed his father's profession, painting enamels which are difficult to distinguish from those of Jean the elder. He lived chiefly in London, where he executed several enamel portraits of Charles II., and died there in 1730. A portrait of him by Mignard is in the Geneva museum and another, in enamel by himself, belongs to the earl of Dartrey.
Of the works of Petitot the most important collection is in the Jones Bequest at the Victoria and Albert Museum. There are many in the Louvre, sixteen at Chantilly, seventeen at Windsor, and others in the collections of Earl Beauchamp, the duke of Rutland, the duke of Richmond, the earl of Dartrey, Mr. Alfred de Rothschild and the late Baroness Burdett-Coutts. Amongst Lord Dartrey's examples are portraits of Petitot and of his son, and two of the wife of Jean Petitot the younger. A second portrait of the artist belongs to the queen of Holland, and another is in the collection of the late Mr. Stroehlin of Geneva. In Mr. Pierpont Morgan's collection there are many exceedingly fine examples, but especially three drawings on paper, the only three which appear to have survived, and the large signed miniature of the duchess of Richmond already mentioned, the largest work Petitot ever executed save the one at Chatsworth.
See Petitot et Bordier, by Ernest Stroehlin (Geneva, 19o5) ; "Some New Information respecting Jean Petitot," by G. C. Williamson, Nineteenth Century and After ( January 1908), pp. 98-110 ; the privately printed Catalogue of the Collection of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, vol. iii.; The History of Portrait Miniatures, by G. C. Williamson, vol. ii. (London, 1904).