Jean-Joseph-Xavier Bidauld

Born at Carpentras near Nîmes, Bidauld belonged to the early generation of neo-classical landscape painters led by Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes and including Jean-Victor Bertin (1767-1842) and Didier Boguet (1755-1839). He was the first landscape painter to enter the Académie des Beaux-Arts, in 1823. Taught by Claude-Joseph Vernet, he painted in Fontainebleau and Switzerland and spent five years in Italy, from 1785 to 1790, painting in the Roman Campagna and elsewhere.

François Joseph Heim, ‘Portrait of Jean-Joseph-Xavier Bidaud’, Musée du Louvre, Paris
© RMN, Paris / Thierry Le Mage 

On returning to Paris, he exhibited historical landscapes at the Salon until his death and was a vocal opponent of naturalism in landscape.