Jacques Sablet
Born in 1749.
Died in 1803.
Jacques Sablet is described in the documentation consulted as a painter of Swiss origin. It is reported that his contemporaries nicknamed him “le Peintre du Soleil”.
His earliest training took place within the family circle: his father, a decorator and gilder in Lausanne, was his first teacher and instructed him in the decorative arts. Continuing a training directed towards decoration, he was apprenticed to Dubois and Cochers, decorative painters in Lyon. In 1772, he settled in Paris, where he worked for three years with Joseph‑Marie Vien, according to the principal source.
In 1775, he accompanied Joseph‑Marie Vien to Rome, on the occasion of the latter’s appointment to the directorship of the Académie de France. Within the Roman artistic community, he shared a studio with Jean‑Germain Drouais and formed a friendship with Simon Denis, according to the surviving references. The documentation indicates that he remained in Italy for many years—the source refers to “two decades”—before returning to Paris.
Born into a family of siblings active in the arts, he was the younger brother of François Sablet, also a painter. The dossier notes that their father, Jacob/Jacques Sablet, worked as a decorative painter, gilder, and dealer in art objects, thus establishing the professional background of the family milieu.
Among the works identified is Élégie romaine (1791), an oil on canvas, reported as being held at the musée des beaux‑arts de Brest. Other works are mentioned in the documentation: La Mort de Pallas (1778), located at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and a Portrait d’Eleonora Chigi (1793), indicated at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Also cited are a Portrait de famille devant un port (1800), recorded at the musée des beaux‑arts de Montréal, and Le Sacrifice d’un père, reported at the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm.
His participation in the Salons is documented: the source mentions works exhibited in 1791 (Scène familière) and in 1796 (Le Premier Pas de l’enfance).
For the study of the artist, Anne van de Sandt’s 1984 dissertation, entitled Jacques Sablet (1749‑1803). Biographie et catalogue raisonné, is cited as a substantial resource and as the source of a catalogue raisonné.