Peter Adolf Hall

Together with his younger brother Birger Martin, Hall studied medicine and 'natural history' between 1753-55 at Uppsala University's medical faculty where Carl Linnaeus taught.

He painted portraits of the Dauphin of France, the prospective Louis XVI, as of his two brothers, who also would ascend the throne eventually, after the Revolution and the Napoleonic period, namely, Louis XVIII and Charles X. Peter Adolf Hall was then appointed a court painter or Peintre du Roi et des Enfants de France.

On 23 April 1771 he married a merchant's daughter, Marie Adelaïde Gobin (1752-1832), in the newly built parish church of Saint-Louis at Versailles.

Among those who visited his home on the Rue du Petit-Reposoir in Paris were not only the art world participants and patrons but also the Marquis of Lafayette.

His wife's inherited wealth was confiscated by the nation and a son-in-law married to the painter's first-born was torn to pieces by a mob six weeks after their wedding.

Adélaïde Victoire Hall by Peter Adolf Hall, 1785, The Wallace Collection , London
Peter Adolf Hall's 18th century room. The piano represents a central part of the artistic Hall family life as one of the daughters was playing it, often together with her father on flute. Some of his miniature works are framed on the wall, Borås Art Museum