Jean-Pierre Granger

Jean-Pierre Granger (Paris, 1779 – Paris, 1840) was a French painter working in the Neoclassical style. He is best known for portraits, history paintings and mythological scenes, and he also produced many religious works. The son of a glazier, he reportedly served as a drum major as a child in the Régiment Royal-Bonbons, a children's branch of the French Guards. He learned engraving from Louis-Jean Allais, whose wife, the watercolourist Angélique Briceau, had also taught him. After seven years as an engraver he felt constrained by the medium and turned to oil painting in the studio of Jean-Baptiste Regnault, later working closely with Jacques-Louis David.

In 1800 he won the Prix de Rome with Antiochus Sending His Son to Scipio as a Hostage. His fellow student Ingres, who placed second, accused David of influencing the jury. In Rome he worked for Lucien Bonaparte, making sketches and paintings of the prince's antiquities. A portrait of Bonaparte's wife did not satisfy him, so he reworked it as an anonymous court lady; the model, Jeanne-Catherine Delaigle, became his wife. He returned to Paris in 1812 and exhibited at the Salon every year until his death. His daughter, the pianist Palmyre, married the writer Paul Meurice, and Ingres, who had become her godfather, painted her portrait.