Jacques François Joseph Swebach-Desfontaines

Jacques François Joseph Swebach-Desfontaines, known as Fontaine (19 March 1769, Metz - 10 December 1823, Paris) was a French painter and designer.

He first learned painting from his father François Louis Swebach-Desfontaines (1749-1793), a self-taught amateur artist and a Member of the Scientific Society of Metz who illustrated Histoire naturelle : ou, Exposition des morceaux, les mieux choisis pour servir à l'étude de la minéralogie et de la cristallographie.

[1] In the late 1780s, he frequented the woods near the Château de Fontainebleau, with Lazare Bruandet and Georges Michel, painting landscapes.

[2] During the Revolution, his paintings were of a patriotic nature; notably The Young Darruder and Joseph Agricol Viala, both engraved by Charles-Melchior Descourtis [fr].

[4] That same year, he participated in creating the "Service Encyclopédique" [fr]; a table service commissioned by Napoleon to reward his Secretary of State, Hugues Bernard Maret, for managing the wedding arrangements of Stéphanie de Beauharnais and Charles, the future Grand Duke of Baden.