Veduta del Palazzo Madama in oggi Governo di Roma

Biography:

Jean Barbault, was a French painter and engraver born in 1718. He is most famously known for his Capricci paintings of architectural fantasies. He trained under the painter John Restout II in Paris but moved to Rome at the age of 29, where he spent the rest of his career and life. 

His skills were recognized and he received a scholarship from the Académie des Beaux-Arts, in Rome. By 1748 he was already established in a circle of Roman artists that included Paolo Anesi, Jean-Laurent Legeay, Philothée-Francois Duflos, and Giovanni Battista Piranesi. In that year, he made engravings for Piranesi’s Varie vedute di Roma antica e moderna. Uncommonly, Barbault was accepted into the Académie de France in Rome, without taking an entrance exam. Joining the ranks of Noël Hallé, Jacques François Joseph Saly and Charles-Michel-Ange Challe. It is believed that this acceptance into the Académie was due to the patronage of Francois de Troy. However, Barbault was soon expelled from the Académie as he chose to marry, forbidden for academicians. 

Barbault collaborated with Piranesi again in 1756 on Le antichità Romane, and this work led him to produce a book of his own, Les plus beaux monuments de Rome ancienne, consisting of 128 plates. Barbault’s architectural studies are often branded by the focus on public spaces of the cities, consisting of wide and vast Piazzas and streets with very little human presence.