Huet the Elder

Jean-Baptiste Huet the Elder, born in Paris on October 15, 1745, and deceased in the same city on August 27, 1811, established himself as one of the most refined animal painters of the second half of the eighteenth-century French art scene. Trained under Charles Dagomer and Jean-Baptiste Le Prince, he was accepted into the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in 1768, then received as a full academician in 1769 with his painting “The Dog Attacking Geese.” A versatile artist, Huet excelled in oil painting as well as drawing and engraving, developing a graceful style that combined the sensibility of the waning Rococo with a naturalistic observation that already heralded the concerns of the following century.

Huet’s originality lies particularly in his fruitful collaboration with the Jouy-en-Josas Manufactory, for which he designed numerous patterns for printed fabrics—the famous “toiles de Jouy”—where his bucolic compositions populated with shepherds, flocks, and pastoral scenes achieved considerable success. His pictorial production, characterized by luminous treatment and a delicate touch, follows the French pastoral tradition while demonstrating particular attention to the faithful representation of domestic and wild animals, studied from nature. The work of Jean-Baptiste Huet, long overshadowed by the upheavals of Neoclassicism and Romanticism, is today experiencing a well-deserved reassessment that emphasizes his significant contribution to French decorative arts and his enduring influence on European animal iconography.

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