Pierre-Jacques Antoine Volaire (1729 – c. 1799-1802)

• Was a French painter.
• Born into a large family of painters in Toulon.
• His grandfather Jean Volaire was a painter decorator at the arsenal, his father Jacques Volaire, the city's official painter.
• Pierre-Jacques Volaire became Claude Joseph Vernet's collaborator for his series of Ports de France in 1754 and until 1762.
• In 1762 Volaire settled in Rome, became a member of the Academy of St. Luke and a knight.
• But competition in the art market led him to settle in Naples in 1767, where he would remain from now on.
• He specializes in representations of mounting Vesuvius.
• The volcano was then in full activity and Naples attracted the "Grand Tour" travellers (English, French, Germans, Russians) who constituted the artist's clientele.
• Volaire will decline the eruptions of the volcano from different points of view and in different formats.
• Next