Jean Alaux, called "le Romain", was a French history painter and Director of the French Academy in Rome from 1846-1852.
Background
Alaux was born in Bordeaux, the son of a painter and the second of four brothers who all became painters. He received his first lessons in art from his father, but went on to a formal training with Pierre Lacour and later with Pierre-Narcisse Guérin.
Education
École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts.
Career
In 1807 he was admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He subsequently became a pensionnaire at the French Academy in Rome from 1816 to 1820 and went on to become its director His first painting at the Academy was "Cadmus killing the dragon at the fountains of Dirce", which was later purchased by the Duke of Orleans but was destroyed in the fire which engulfed the Palais-Royal in the French Revolution of 1848.
Alaux also painted at the Academy "Diamedes carrying off the palladium" and "Episodes in the combats between the centaurs and the Lapithes".
Under the July Monarchy, he worked at the "Galerie des batailles" of the Château de Versailles, for which he painted "The Battle of Villaviciosa" (1836). "The Capture of Valenciennes" (1837).
And "The Battle of Denain" (1839). His directorship ended quietly with his retirement in 1852.
Alaux died in Paris on 2 March 1864.
Views
Alaux was appointed as director of the French Academy in Rome in 1846 and was caught up in the siege of Rome of 1849, involving defending Italian forces under Garibaldi and the invading French army. He and his students were forced to temporarily flee the city for France.