LAIRESSE, GERARD, an eminent Flemish painter, born at Liege in 1640. He received the principal part of his instruction from his father Renieve de Lairesse, though he is also accounted a disciple of Bartolet. He first settled at Utrecht, where he lived in distressed circumstances; but an accidental recommendation carrying him to Amsterdam, he soon exchanged want and obscurity for affluence and reputation. He was a perfect master of history; his designs are distinguished by the grandeur of the composition; and the back grounds, wherever the subjects required it, are rich in architecture, which is an uncommon circumstance in that country. He had the unhappiness to lose his sight several years before his death, which happened in 1711; so that the treatise on Design and Colouring, which passes under his name, was not wrote by him, but collected from his observations after he was blind, and published after his death. He had three sons, two of whom were painters; and also three brothers, Ernest, James, and John: Ernest and John painted animals, and James was a flower painter. He engraved a good deal in aquafortis: his works consist of 256 plates, above half of which were done with his own hand. He wrote an excellent book on the art, which
Lake. which has been translated into English, and printed at London both in 4to and 8vo.
Lais, a celebrated courtesan, daughter of Timandra, the mistress of Alcibiades, born at Hycara in Sicily. She was carried away from her native place when Nicias the Athenian general invaded Sicily. She first began to sell her favours at Corinth for 10,000 drachmas, and the immense number of princes, noblemen, philosophers, orators, and plebeians, which courted her embraces, show how much commendation is owed to her personal charms. The expences which attended her pleasures, gave rise to the proverb of Non cuius homini contingit adire Corinthum. Even Demosthenes himself visited Corinth for the sake of Lais; but when he was informed by the courtesan, that admittance to her bed was to be bought at the enormous sum of about 2000 English money, the orator departed, and observed that he would not buy repentance at so dear a price. The charms which had attracted Demosthenes to Corinth had no influence upon Xenocrates. When Lais saw the philosopher unmoved by her beauty, she visited his house herself; but there she had no reason to boast of the licentiousness or easy submission of Xenocrates. Diogenes the Cynic was one of her warmest admirers, and though filthy in his dress and manners, yet he gained her heart, and enjoyed her most unbounded favours. The sculptor Mycon also solicited the favours of Lais, but he met with coldness: he, however, attributed the cause of his ill reception to the whiteness of his hair, and dyed it of a brown colour, but to no purpose: "Fool that thou art (said the courtesan) to ask what I refused yesterday to thy father." Lais ridiculed the austerity of philosophers, and laughed at the weakness of those who pretend to have gained a superiority over their passions, by observing that the sages and philosophers of the age were not above the rest of mankind, for she found them at her door as often as the rest of the Athenians. The success which her debaucheries met at Corinth encouraged Lais to pass into Thessaly, and more particularly to enjoy the company of a favourite youth called Hippostratus. She was however disappointed: the women of the place, jealous of her charms, and apprehensive of her corrupting the fidelity of their husbands, assassinated her in the temple of Venus, about 340 years before the Christian era. Some suppose that there were two persons of this name, a mother and her daughter.