Jean-Victor Bertin (French, 1767–1842)

b. 1767 — d. 1842

Bertin entered the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture at age eighteen as a pupil of Gabriel-François Doyen (1726-1806). In 1788 he was a student of Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes (1750-1819), who encouraged him to paint idealized Italianate landscapes. Bertin exhibited at the Salon from 1793 until he died in 1842 and received the Legion of Honor in 1822. The French government commissioned works from him for the Grand Trianon at Versailles and the Château de Fontainebleau and purchased others for the provincial museums. Many of his earlier paintings, however, are only known to us through engraved reproductions. He most likely visited Italy between 1806 and 1808, as may be concluded from specific locations depicted in his landscapes. It was in part through the initiative of Bertin that a special Prix de Rome for historical landscape was created at the Académie in 1817. He conveyed his ideas about landscape painting in two series of lithographs published under the titles Recueil d'études de paysage (1816) and Études de paysages (1823). Among the famous painters who studied under Bertin were Achille Michallon (1796-1822), Jules Coignet (1798-1860) and Corot (q.v.).