François Dumont

François Dumont was one of the finest French painters of portrait miniatures. His small portraits are precise and delicate, with fresh colour, careful rendering of faces and hair, and fine detail in costume.

He was born in Lunéville in Lorraine in 1751 and settled in Paris, where he became a member of the Académie in 1788 and had lodgings in the Louvre. He painted the French royal family, including Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, and later Louis XVIII and Charles X. He married the daughter of the miniaturist Antoine Vestier, and two of his sons also became painters.

His portrait of Marguerite Gérard, the painter, from 1793, is one of our pictures. He died in Paris in 1831.