Biography

French painter, draughtsman and teacher, active also in Italy. An exact contemporary of François Boucher, he was a painter of cabinet pictures, decorations and tapestry cartoons and one of the most adept practitioners of Rococo art in 18th-century France. The greater part of his career was spent in Paris, where he received important commissions from Louis XV as well as from private patrons. In 1751 he accepted the post of Director of the Académie de France in Rome. From then on he devoted himself to his teaching duties at the expense of his painting. He remained in Rome for the rest of his life.