(b Paris, ?Nov 1686; d Paris, 12 April 1761). French painter, draughtsman and designer. He was the son of a master mason and probably served his apprenticeship with an ornamental craftsman. His earliest known work is a design for an engraved title-page cartouche (see Roland Michel, 1984, fig. 333) dating from 1713. In 1721 he was received (re?u) into the Acad?mie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture on presentation of two painted architectural capriccios, of which one, Figures in a Ruined Palace (Gray, Mus. Martin), survives. He continued to specialize in this type of fictive architectural perspective in a landscape setting throughout his career. As well as easel pictures, Lajo?e also painted decorative canvases for insertion in panelling, screens and firescreens, designed banners, picture frames, harpsichord cases and the decorative components of carriages (e.g. that for the Prince de Tonnay-Charante; drawings 1729-30; Stockholm, Nmus.).
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