Louis Carrogis de Carmontelle (1717–1806)

• Was a French dramatist, painter, architect, and set designer.
• Carmontelle was born in Paris.
• His father was a bootmaker.

• He studied drawing and geometry, and at the age of twenty three qualified for the title of engineer, and entered the service of the Duc de Chevreuse and the Duc de Luynes at the Château de Dampierre.

• In 1758, he entered the service of the Comte Pons de Saint-Maurice, governor of the Duc de Chartres and commander of regiment of Orléans-dragons as a topographical engineer.

• In addition to his drawing duties, he wrote farces and tales.

• After 1763 he entered into the service of Louis Philippe I, Duke of Orléans as a lecteur, responsible for providing theatrical performances for the family.

• He wrote and directed plays, decorated the scenery and made the costumes.

• He invented a new genre of play, the proverbe dramatique, a scene of light comedy designed to be a point of departure for a theatrical improvisation.

• He also wrote plays for the famous ballerina, Marie-Madeleine Guimard. 

• In addition to his work in the theatre, he was a talented artist, who made portraits in pen and watercolor in less than two hours of notable people that he met.

• The most famous of his drawings is that of the infant Mozart playing the clavier.

• Carmontelle's watercolour (1763) of Leopold Mozart with Wolfgang Amadeus and Maria Anna is among his best-known works. 

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