[1][2] The son of a modest painter, Manglard was trained in Lyon by his godson Adriaen van der Cabel, a Dutch Golden Age landscapist.

Dupérier's mother later remarried to local painter Pierre Savournin, to whom Jean Manglard asked for her hand.

His family suffered the economic repercussions of the famine caused by the Little Ice Age's extremely cold weather, which led to the seven ill years in Scotland and the remarkably cold Le Grand Hiver in France, with the subsequent famine estimated to have caused 600,000 deaths by the end of 1710 in France.

[13][14] In 1707, Manglard's two brothers Pierre and Daniel were left at the Hôpital de la Charité, an orphanage in Lyon, to which they were admitted as délaissés (abandoned).

[17][18] Manglard later moved from Lyon to Marseille, or Avignon, where he studied under the Carthusian painter Joseph Gabriel Imbert (1666–1749),[15][1] a relatively unknown master of whom today but a few biographical anecdotes and two paintings (a copy of Guido Reni's Annunciazione and a large landscape painting depicting the Flight into Egypt) survive.

[15] A painting by Manglard dated 1722 (a seascape drawing "touched by strokes of a pen and watercolor, one braccio and 1/6 wide, 15 soldi high, depicting both ships and figures") was once at the Gabburri Gallery in Florence.

[2][1] Manglard also enjoyed the patronage of the most important Roman families, including the Colonna, the Orsini, the Rondani, the Rospigliosi and the Chigi.

[26] After a brief period of employment in France, where he devoted himself to studying under van der Cabel and Frère Imbert, Manglard moved to Rome.

One of his earliest known Roman works (setting 1722, at least, as a terminus post quem for his arrival in the Italian capital;[20] although Le Gros is known to have acquired six paintings from Manglard before his own demise in 1719[21]) is a drawing once housed at the Galleria Gabburri in Florence, now lost.

The drawing in chalk, pen and watercolor was commissioned by Niccolò Gabburri himself, and depicted a seascape with both figures and ships (Disegno d'una marina, toccata di penna e acquerelli; per traverso lunga un braccio e 1/6, alta soldi 15, con quantità di navi e figure.

Manglard thus came into contact firstly with the Dutch Golden age landscape painting style with the due amount of Italian influence of Cabel, to then actually move to Italy himself in his early twenties, and be therein influenced by the prominent Rome based painters of the day, including artists in the circle of sculptor Pierre Legros,[1] such as Sebastiano Conca and Caspar van Wittel.

[21] Manglard's marine paintings combine "the idealized, classical landscapes of Claude Lorrain with the acute realism of Northern models.

Figures such as Moors and camels, which appear frequently in his paintings, reflect the exoticism of the great Italian harbors.

According to the same authors, Vernet had in turn a more "subtle grace and spirit" than his master, who presented a sound, firm, natural and harmonizing taste ("... Il suo nome [Bernardino Fergioni's] fu dopo non molti anni oscurato da due franzesi, Adriano Manglard, di un gusto sodo, naturale, accordato; e il suo allievo, Giuseppe Vernet, di una vaghezza e di uno spirito superiore al maestro").