Antoine Vestier

1740 – 1824

French painter. After seeing Vestier's Ascension in the principal church of Avallon, a local notable, Philippe-Louis de Chastellux (1726-1787), funded the painter's journey to Paris, where he entered the studio of Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre. He was also taught the technique of enamel painting by his future father-in-law, Antoine Reverand (d. before 1764), and he worked in Paris as a painter of portrait miniatures in enamels. He gained few commissions until after 1766, however, when he became the painter of the powerful d'Hozier family. In 1774 he exhibited at the Salon of the Académie de St Luc, and in 1776 he went to London, where he probably knew Philippe-Jacques de Loutherbourg and possibly Thomas Gainsborough. He showed his work at the Salon de la Correspondance, Paris, before being admitted (agréé) to the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1785, when a portrait of the painter Gabriel François Doyen, was his morceau de réception. In 1786 he became 'peintre du roi.' Like many artists, he was housed in the Louvre before the Revolution and was the neighbour of the painter Jacques-Louis David. He was a successful society portraitist.

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