François Perrier a French painter and etcher

Etching

Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal...

, is remembered for his two collections of prints after antique sculptures, the Segmenta nobilium signorum et statuarum quae temporis dentem invidium evasere, (Paris, 1638), and Icones et segmenta...quae Romae adhuc extant (Paris, 1645); they provided visual repertories of classical models for generations of European artists and connoisseurs.

Biography

During the years 1620–1625, he resided in Rome, where he took for his model the practitioner of academic baroque classicism, Giovanni Lanfranco

Giovanni Lanfranco

Giovanni Lanfranco was an Italian painter of the Baroque period.-Biography:Giovanni Gaspare Lanfranco was born in Parma, the third son of Stefano and Cornelia Lanfranchi, and was placed as a page in the household of Count Orazio Scotti...

. On his return to France, following a brief stay at Lyon

Lyon

Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....

 he settled in Paris in 1630, working in the classsicising circle of Simon Vouet

Simon Vouet

Simon Vouet was a French painter and draftsman, who today is perhaps best remembered for helping to introduce the Italian Baroque style of painting to France.-Life:...

 In 1632–1634, he had for a pupil Charles Le Brun

Charles Le Brun

Charles Le Brun , a French painter and art theorist, became the all-powerful, peerless master of 17th-century French art.-Biography:-Early life and training:...

, destined to become the central figure of official French painting in the age of Louis XIV

Louis XIV of France

Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...

.

Perrier returned to Rome in 1635, remaining there for the next decade, which saw his decors for palazzo Peretti and the publication in Paris of his great repertory of images. In 1645, once again in Paris he painted the ceiling of the gallery of the Hôtel de La Vrillière, now the seat of the Banque de France

Banque de France

The Banque de France is the central bank of France; it is linked to the European Central Bank . Its main charge is to implement the interest rate policy of the European System of Central Banks...

 and worked with Eustache Le Sueur

Eustache Le Sueur

Eustache Le Sueur or Lesueur , one of the founders of the French Academy of Painting, was born in Paris, where he passed his whole life....

 on the cabinet de l’amour in the Hôtel Lambert

Hôtel Lambert

Hôtel Lambert is a hôtel particulier, a grand mansion townhouse, on the Quai Anjou on the eastern tip of the Île Saint-Louis, Paris IVème; the name, Hôtel Lambert, was a sobriquet that designated a 19th-century political faction of Polish exiles, who gathered there.-Architectural history:The house...

. In 1648, he was one of the twelve founders of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture.

In 1869, the French city of Mâcon

Mâcon

Mâcon is a small city in central France. It is prefecture of the Saône-et-Loire department, in the region of Bourgogne, and the capital of the Mâconnais district. Mâcon is home to over 35,000 residents, called Mâconnais.-Geography:...

founded its Musée des Beaux-arts with a bequest of eight canvases by Perrier.