Pierre Cacault

The younger brother of the diplomat and collector François Cacault, Pierre worked as a painter at the family faience business and helped manage it for a while before leaving for Paris to study painting.

In 1774, as bursar of the town of Nantes, he left for Rome, where he studied under Vien and began producing history paintings.

He then painted for nearly 20 years, meeting many other artists such as Mathurin and Louis Crucy, Coste, David, Antonio Canova and François-Frédéric Lemot.

In his brother's absence (in Italy until 1803) he took on overseeing the construction of buildings for a museum-school, completed in 1804, in a picturesque Italian-inspired architectural style.

On 27 January 1810 Nantes's mayor Bertrand-Geslin bought the collection for the town, and two days later Pierre died.