Fleury-François Richard

Fleury François Richard (25 February 1777, Lyon – 14 March 1852, Écully), sometimes called Fleury-Richard, was a painter of the École de Lyon. A student of Jacques-Louis David, Fleury-Richard and his friend Pierre Révoil were precursors of the Troubador style.

The son of a magistrate, Fleury François Richard studied at the collège de l'Oratoire in Lyon then at the école de Dessin under Alexis Grognard. At the latter he met Pierre Révoil. In 1796 he joined the Paris studio of Jacques-Louis David. His first paintings had major success and he mingled with the Paris intelligentsia, among whom the Troubador style was highly favoured. He became the favourite painter of empress Joséphine de Beauharnais, who bought many of his paintings, so that the European renown gained by his first works was recognised by Madame de Staël.

In 1808 he set up his own studio at the palais Saint-Pierre at Lyon, having been granted it by the city for the benefits he had brought to it by his reputation. He was initiated into the Scottish Rite Masonic Lodge of Isis in 1809, and in 1814 married a banker's daughter, Blanche Menut. He was made a knight of the Légion d'honneur in 1815.

Seeking inspiration, he visited Geneva, Milan, Turin and the Dauphiné. He served as a professor at the École des beaux-arts de Lyon from 1818 to 1823. In 1851 he set himself up at Écully, devoting himself to writing. He edited his Souvenirs, lives of painters and a work on painting in the second-order towns of France, Quelques réflexions sur l'enseignement de la peinture dans les villes de second ordre.

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