Henry d'Arles

Born in Arles to a clerk at the "bureau des fermes" in that town, from a very young age Jean Henry was devoted to art and he was presented to Jean-Joseph Kapeller, a painter who had come to the town to decorate the hôtel des fermes.

Around that time Claude Joseph Vernet had come to Marseille to paint its port.

He asked Kapeller to loan him one of his students as a studio assistant and Kapeller selected Henry, on whom Vernet became a major influence, so much so that he was given the hostile nickname "Vernet's monkey".

[1] He frequented Marseille's port, dockyards and quays, never hesitating to spend a day out at sea in a storm, the better to understand nature's great spectacles.

Jean-Baptiste Rey provided Henry with enough funds to spend two years in Rome to complete his art training, returning at the height of his powers with the nickname "Henry d'Arles".