Jean-Baptiste Charpentier the Elder (1728-1806)

• Was a French Rococo portrait painter.
• He is best known for portraits of Marie-Antoinette and Louis Jean Marie de Bourbon, Duke of Penthièvre.
• He was probably related to Jean Charpentier, a painter and gilder who served as one of the last directors of the Académie de Saint-Luc.
• Later, he became a teacher there.
• He had wanted to enter the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture but declined to apply, probably due to obtaining a position with the Penthièvre family.
• He married Anne-Catherine Le Prince, daughter of the Painter to the King, Jean-Baptiste Le Prince.
• After the Académie of Saint Luc was suppressed, he continued to exhibit at the Salon de la Correspondance of the Académie royal.
• He became a good friend of Jean-Baptiste Greuze.
• He exhibited there until 1785.
• When the French Revolution abolished academic privilege, he switched to the Salon de Louvre and exhibited there from 1791 to 1799.
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