Born in Paris in 1726. Pupil of C. Van Loo at the école des Elèves Protégés, Prix de Rome and sojourn there at the Académie de France. Studied the great decorative painters of the seventeenth century such as Domenichino, Pietro da Cortona and Luca Giordano. After his return to Paris in 1758, he was accepted to the Academy, where he was named professor in 1776. In 1765-1771 he collaborated on the decoration of the Dôme des Invalides. In 1774 he designed the festival decor for the coronation of Louis XVI in Reims. In 1792 he moved to the Imperial Academy in St Petersburg, where he died in 1806.
