When people think “Baroque,” they may think of yawn-inducing museum audio tours about gaudy furniture and dead white guys.

Seventeenth-century painter Pierre Mignard certainly meets the latter criteria…but while his style was out of Better Homes and Gardens: Versailles Edition, his spirit was all Banksy. He’s known for giving the finger to the establishment, and for his messy, thirty-year feud with fellow artist Charles Le Brun (a relative by marriage of Marie Antoinette’s court painter Louise Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun).

Mignard was born in France in 1612, but spent his youth in Italy with an international colony of artists.  While there he painted Catholic religious art, acquired the nickname “Mignard the Roman” and married an architect’s daughter named Anna Avolora.  Anna was said to be a creature of “perfect beauty,” and Mignard used her as his model for paintings of the Virgin Mary (Madonna-whore complex much?).

Shortly after the marriage, Louis XIV learned of his reputation and called him back to France.  Mignard became lifelong frenemies with George Le Brun when he rejected Le Brun’s invitation to join the Royal Academy, of which he was Director.  Mignard dedicated the rest of his career to undermining Le Brun and the Academy.  In consequence, he wasn’t invited to participate in great public works such as church frescos.

Mignard enjoyed his self-imposed exile from the cultural powers that be, preferring the company of rich hotties to stodgy academics. He became a baroque Annie Leibovitz, painting lavish glamour portraits of the reigning beauties and celebrities of the day including various Royal mistresses, the philosopher Descartes and the playwright Moliere.  He and Moliere developed a close personal friendship.

When Le Brun conveniently died in 1690, Mignard dropped his bad-boy rebel act and snatched up his dead nemesis’ post as Director of the Royal Academy.  He who laughs last laughs loudest, but Mignard didn’t laugh very long.  He died just five years later, proving that Karma was just as much of a bitch in the 1600s.