François Dumont (painter)

François Dumont; Self portrait

François Dumont (* 1751 in Lunéville , † 1831 in Paris ) was a French miniature painter and court painter to Louis XVI. , Marie Antoinette , Louis XVIII. and Charles X .

Life

François Dumont received his first artistic lessons in Lunéville from the sculptor Mathis and later from Girardet in Nancy . At the age of 17 he traveled to Paris, where he quickly became a successful miniature painter; from 1786 he was court painter to Marie Antoinette . He stayed in Rome in 1786 and became a member of the Royal Academy in 1788. In 1789 he married Nicole Vestier, the daughter of the miniature painter Antoine Vestier , and received a year later from King Louis XVI. an apartment in the Louvre . Although associated with the high aristocracy in the Ancien Régime , Dumont was arrested in September 1793, but later released. From 1789 to 1831 Dumont exhibited regularly at the Salon de Paris . Although he allegedly gave no lessons, in the salons' livret the miniature painters Tony Dumont and Louis Alexandre are named as his students.

Works (selection)

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  Marie-Alexandre Guenin (1744–1819), oil on canvas, 1791

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  Marguerite Gérard , oil on canvas, 1793

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  The Architect , oil on canvas, around 1795

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  Charles François Viel (1745–1819), oil on canvas, around 1800

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  Self-portrait with wife, daughter and son

literature

• GC Williamson: The History of Portrait Miniatures , London (1904)
• Catalog of the Collection of Miniatures of Mr J. Pierpont Morgan , London, Vol. IV.