Jean Baptiste Huet (French, Paris 1745 to 1811)
Jean-Baptiste Huet was the son of Nicolas Huet Le Vieux, and the nephew of Christophe Huet, both successful animal painters. He became the apprentice of Charles Dagomer, member of the Academie de St. Luc, and then became the student of Jean-Baptiste Leprince in 1764. He was received at the Academie Royale in 1768. In 1790 he was affiliated with the manufactures of Jouy, the Gobelins and Beauvais.
He was also a pupil and friend of Francois Boucher, producing works in collaboration with the latter who introduced him to the Rococo movement. Huet tried his hand at animal paintings, taking his father as a model, at landscapes and genre paintings. In 1769, he was received into the Royal Academy as an animal painter. He became very popular among Parisians, and it was not unusual for even the paintings he exhibited at the Salon to be commissioned works. Although Huet is best known today as a painter of animals and pastorales, he also showed great interest in depicting historical scenes.
Information courtesy of Sotheby’s, October 2007 and January, 2008.