The Écoles gratuites de dessin (French for free drawing schools) were several art schools founded in eighteenth-century France, notably the École Royale Gratuite de Dessin in Paris.
Around sixty independent Écoles gratuites de dessin were established in France during the eighteenth century Age of Enlightenment.
[1] The schools varied in size from single-teacher schools with a few dozen students to those in Bordeaux and Marseille which had more than twelve teachers and several hundred students.
The Paris school of Jean-Jacques Bachelier may have had up to 1,500 students.
[1] The École Royale Gratuite de Dessin (Royal Free Drawing School), also known as the École Gratuite de Dessin or the Petite École, was founded in 1766 by Jean-Jacques Bachelier,[2] and confirmed in 1767 by letters patent from Louis XV of France.