Abraham Constantin

In 1826 the house of Savoy bought 17 paintings on porcelain from Abraham Constantin, a Genevan enamel painter, for 125,000 francs. They were copies of old masters made during his years in Florence, and before they went to Turin he asked to show them around Europe. They were on view for eight days in Geneva, then in Paris at the palace of the Institut, where the novelist Stendhal saw them, and finally in a house on Regent Street in London.

Constantin was born in Geneva in 1785 and trained there as an enameller. In 1807 he went to Paris, where the support of the Empress Joséphine brought him portrait commissions from the imperial family. From 1813 he was the leading painter at the Sèvres porcelain factory, and in 1820 its director, the scientist Alexandre Brongniart, sent him to Florence to reproduce the old masters in enamel. Back in Paris he was named porcelain painter to King Charles X.

In 1829 he settled in Rome, meaning to copy on porcelain all of Raphael's frescoes in the Vatican and in the Villa Farnesina. There he often shared his lodgings with Stendhal, and in 1840 the two published a book of notes on famous Italian paintings. He died in Geneva in 1855.