François-André Vincent

For a stretch of the 1770s and 1780s, François-André Vincent looked like the coming leader of the new severe, classical painting in France, ahead of his exact contemporary Jacques-Louis David. The two had trained in the same Paris circle and competed for the same grand subjects drawn from Roman history.

The son of a painter, Vincent won the Prix de Rome in 1768, the prize that sent a young artist to study in Italy at the crown's expense. He had studied under Joseph-Marie Vien, the same teacher David would have, and through the Salons of the 1770s he built a strong reputation with vigorous history paintings and lively portraits.

David's success gradually overtook him, and the upheavals of the Revolution along with his own failing health thinned his output. In 1800 Vincent married Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, one of the finest portrait painters in France and a campaigner for the admission of women to the royal academy.