Simon Denis (1755–1813)

• Was a Flemish painter active primarily in Italy.
• Simon first studied in his native city of Antwerp, with the landscape and animal painter H.-J. Antonissen.

• He lived in Paris for ten years where he gained the patronage of genre painter and art dealer Jean-Baptiste-Pierre Lebrun.

• Denis move to Rome in 1786.

• In 1787 he married a local woman.

• He remained close to the Flemish community in Rome, and in 1789 was elected to head the Foundation St.-Julien-des-Flamands.

• He also developed ties within the French artistic community.

• Élisabeth-Louise Vigée-Le Brun stayed with him for some days in 1789.

• In 1803, he was elected to the Accademia di San Luca. 

• Simon Denis exhibited several times at the Salon de peinture de Paris in 1791, 1802, 1804, and in 1808.

• He settled for good in Naples in 1806, becoming first court painter to Joseph Bonaparte.

• From 1809 he became professor at the Accademia di Belle Arti. 

• Landscape painter Prosper Barrigue de Fontainieu was his pupil.

• Denis died in 1813.

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