Career
He is known for his portraits of personalities of the Ottoman Empire, as well as paintings of Grand Masters in Malta. In 1762 Antoine de Favray moved to Constantinople like several other European artist of his time did too, where he spent nine years. During his stay in Constantinople he was painting numerous genre scenes of the everyday life in Turkey under Louis XVI and he also depicted locals and foreign dignitaries.
Two portraits are especially notable, one is of the French ambassador Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes (1717-1787) who was living in Constantinople between 1754 to 1768 and the second, that the painter painted two years later, of the ambassador’s wife.
The painting depicts the native-born Annette Duvivier de Testa (1730-1798) who became the ambassador"s wife. Favray portrayed both the ambassador and ambassador’s wife in a rich Turkish dress.