(b Paris, c. 1634; d Paris, 17 March 1712). French painter and dealer. He trained with his father, the landscape painter Pierre Forest (d 1675), and then in Rome under Pier Francesco Mola (ii). On his return journey to France, c. 1667–8, he is said to have made landscape drawings from nature in Provence and the Franche-Comté that must have been among the first of their type by a French artist. A delicate ink drawing of a Fort (Paris, Louvre), attributed to him, probably belongs to this series. He exhibited landscape paintings at the Salon of 1669 and in 1674 was received (reçu) as a member of the Académie Royale. As a Protestant he was expelled from the Académie in 1681 but re-admitted in 1699. An Education of Bacchus (Tours, Mus. B.-A.) has been attributed to him; the only other record of his paintings is an engraving of his Mary Magdalene by Jacobus Coelemans (1654–1731/2) in the Witt Collection. Contemporary commentators praised his work for its combination of the classical tradition of landscape painting with direct observation from nature, and he is known to have been sympathetic to the views of his friend Roger de Piles, the defender of colourism in the debate between the ‘Rubénistes’ and the ‘Poussinistes’ (see POUSSINISME and RUBENISME). Forest dealt in paintings, and an inventory taken at his death shows that he owned a large number of copies after such masters as Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese and Rubens. He was the brother-in-law of Charles de La Fosse and the father-in-law of Nicolas de Largillierre.

• Forest, Jean-Baptiste
  • Piles, Roger de