DURAMEAU, Louis-Jean-Jacques

French painter. The son of a copperplate printer, he worked with the sculptor Jean-Baptiste Defernex before entering the Académie Royale in 1754, where he studied under Jean-Baptiste Pierre. After three unsuccessful attempts he won the Grand Prix de Rome in 1757 with Elijah Raising the Shunammite Woman’s Son from the Dead (École des Beaux-Arts, Paris). He studied (1757-60) at the École des Elèves Protégés in Paris under Carle van Loo, afterwards transferring to the Académie de France in Rome.

During his time in Rome (1761-4) Durameau completed his artistic education, while also making copies after the Old Masters for Pierre-Jean Mariette and studying antique art for the Abbé de Saint-Non. In addition, he painted the genre work, the Saltpetre Factory (Musée du Louvre, Paris), which is one of the first industrial landscapes and in its invention and authority worthy of the finest passages of Jean-Honoré Fragonard.