Jacques-Philippe Caresme

Who was Jacques-Philippe Caresme?

Jacques-Philippe Caresme, a French historical painter, was born in Paris in 1734. He was doubtless a pupil of Charles Antoine Coypel, and was admitted into the Academy whilst still young, but expelled eight years later in consequence of misconduct in some pecuniary transaction. In 1781, when a royalist, he composed an allegorical design in commemoration of the birth of the Dauphin, and in 1794, after he had become an ardent republican, he presented to the Commune of Paris a drawing representing Joseph Chalier, the tyrant of Lyons, going to execution: both of these have been engraved. He also painted a large picture of the 'Nativity of the Virgin ' for the Cathedral of Bayonne. Caresme died in Paris in 1796. There are in the Nantes Museum a 'Holy Family,' and in the Bordeaux Museum a sketch of 'Bathers,' dated 1780. He engraved after his own designs, 'The Execution of the Marquis de Favras, February 19, 1790,' and 'The Market-Women going to Versailles to compel the King to return to Paris, Oct. 5th, 1789.'