NICHOLAS, an ingenious French painter born at Troyes in 1628; but, settling at Avignon, is generally distinguished from his brother Peter by the appellation of Mignard of Avignon. He was afterwards employed at court and at Paris, where he became rector of the royal academy of painting.

There is a great number of his historical pieces and portraits in the palace of the Tuilleries. He died in 1695.

Peter, the brother of Nicholas, was born at Troyes in 1610; and acquired so much of the taste of the Italian school, as to be known by the name of the Roman. He was generally allowed to have a superior genius to his brother Nicholas; and had the honour of painting the popes Alexander VII. and Urban VIII., besides many of the nobility at Rome, and several of the Italian princes: his patron, Louis, sat ten times to him for his portrait, and respected his talents so much as to enable him, make him his principal painter after the death of Le Brun, and appointed him director of the manufactories. He died in 1695, and many of his pieces are to be seen at St Cloud.