Jacques Dumont le Romain

Jacques Dumont le Romain studied at Beaux-Arts de Paris. Training under Joseph Aved is recorded. Louis Joseph Watteau is recorded as having studied under Jacques Dumont le Romain. The recorded working language is French. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are portrait. Places of work recorded in the authority are Paris and Rome. Work by Jacques Dumont le Romain is recorded in the collections of Nationalmuseum, Städel Museum, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art and Musée Carnavalet.

• Name — Jacques Dumont • Born — 10 May 1704 • Birthplace — Paris, Kingdom of France • Died — 17 February 1781 • Place of death — Paris, Kingdom of France • Mother — Marie Mercier • Father — Pierre Dumont • Relatives — François Dumont (brother), Edme Dumont (nephew) • Other Names — Le Romain • Education — Antoine Lebel

Dumont was born in Paris on 10 May 1704. He was the second son of Pierre Dumont, court sculptor to Leopold, Duke of Lorraine, and Marie Mercier. François Dumont, Dumont's older brother, also sculpted for the Duke of Lorraine until his untimely death in 1726. Pierre-Jean Mariette, who knew him well, reported that in his youth le Romain made his way to Rome by camping out; Mariette makes errors about his teacher in Rome, however. Dumont returned to Paris in 1725. In 1727, he first showed at the Paris Salon and in 1728 he was received as a member of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, with a Hercule et Omphale as his morceau de reception. At meetings he terrorized his fellow-academicians with his acerbic and caustic wit. When the engraver Le Bas was refused by the academicians, he remarked, "Stick a chalk-holder up his ass and he'll still draw better than you." In addition to his paintings he practiced etching, in which medium he reproduced some of his paintings and, for example, Servandoni's view of the fireworks celebrating the marriage of the dauphin, 1730. In 1731 he was appointed painter to the tapestry manufacture at Aubusson and served in that capacity until 1755, forming a school of designers there that raised standards of quality. His contract required six cartoons and three designs for pile carpets annually. Aubusson's rivals at the royal manufacture of the Gobelins gave him a back-handed compliment in a memoire to the royal administration dated 10 March 1754, and signed by Audran, Cozette and Neilson: "to prevent the decadence of the Gobelin Factory, it would be necessary to attach to it Sr. Boucher," giving him the assistance of other painters of the Académie such as "Sieurs Dumont Le Romain, Jeaurat, Halle, Challe, Vien." Dumont was briefly Director of the Académie in 1763. When the official paintings school, the École royale des élèves protegés opened in January 1749, Dumont was appointed governor, but withdrew after three months, citing insufficient funds supporting the new institution. Dumont died on 17 February 1781 in Paris.

• Illustration — Glaucus and Scylla (1726) • Illustration — Mucius Scaevola (1747) • Illustration — Allegory of the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle (1761)

• Illustration — Head of a Young Girl • Illustration — The Sacrifice of Manoah