Francois Andre Vincent. French, “Saint Sebastian”, 1789, Oil on Canvas, Musee Fabre, Montpellier
Francois Andre Vincent, a French Neo-Classical painter, was the son of the miniaturist François-Elie Vincent and studied under Joseph-Marie Vien. He was a pupil of École Royale des Éleves Protégés and studied from 1771-75 at the Académie de France. Vincent travelled to Rome, where he won the Prix de Rome in 1768 at the age of twenty-two..
After being awarded the Prix de Rome, Vincent spent the years of 1771 to 1775 in Italy, studying at the French Academy in Rome. It was there that he produced a series of witty and revealing portraits, along with paintings of ordinary people doing their daily activities, landscapes and a few drawings.
Francois Andre Vincent was installed at the Palais Mancini in Rome, where he painted numerous portraits, inspired by painterJean-Honoré Fragonard’s style. Vincent’s studies, such as his 1777 “The Drawing Lesson”, show him responding to Fragonard’s gentle and traditional Louis XV vocabulary of sentiment. At his first Salon of Paris exhibition in 1777, Vincent had fifteen pieces to show, of which three are now at the Fabre Museum in Montpellier. He also participated at the Salon in 1782, 1785, and 1787.
Francois Vincent was a leader of the neoclassical and historical movement in French art, along with his rival Jacques-Louis David, another pupil of Joseph-Marie Vien. Vincent maintained a successful career in France but always in the shadow of David, who was the dominant artist of the day. His wide range of styles contributed to his obscurity, as people usually expected the same style in each painting from one artist. Vincent was a prolific artist whose work, produced in oil on canvas, pen and chalk drawings and watercolors, covered many themes.
In 1790 Vincent was appointed master of drawing to Louis XVI of France and two years later, he became a professor at the elite eighteenth-century French institution for art, The Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. Having flourished under the ancient regime and weathered the chaos of Revolution, he survived to see authoritarianism return with a vengeance under Napoleon. A combination of ill health and disillusionment prevented Vincent from taking up the imagery of Empire to any great extent.