Joseph Benoît Suvée (1743–1807)

• Was a Flemish painter.
• Suvée was born in Bruges.

• Initially a pupil of Matthias de Visch.

• He came to France aged 19 and became a pupil of Jean-Jacques Bachelier.

• In 1771, he won the Prix de Rome.

• In Rome he was from 1772 to 1778, he prolonged the usual duration allowed to pensionaries of the French Academy in Rome.

• He was named an academician on his return to Paris and he opened an art school for young women at the Louvre.

• One of his students was Constance Mayer.

• He emulated and competed with Jacques-Louis David, earning his enduring hatred. 

• Named the French Academy in Rome's director in 1792.   

• After a brilliant career, and a six years' stay in Rome as the Academy's Director, he died there suddenly. 

• His pupils were Jean-Baptiste Joseph Autrique, Augustin van den Berghe, Marie Bouliard, Cornelis Cels, Césarine Henriette Flore Davin, Joseph-François Ducq, Jean-Bernard Duvivier, Jean-François Legillon, Jozef Karel De Meulemeester and many others.

• Anna Barbara Bansi, with whom he is said to have had an affair, was another pupil.

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