Thomas de Thomon

Jean-François Thomas de Thomon (April 12 [O.S. April 1] 1760 – September 4 [O.S. August 23] 1813) was a French neoclassical architect who worked in Eastern Europe in 1791–1813. Thomas de Thomon was the author of on the spit of Vasilievsky Island in Saint Petersburg and the first building of the Odessa Theatre, destroyed by fire in 1873. Thomas de Thomon, graduate of the French Academy in Rome, "imported" the high classicism practiced by this school in 1780s into Russia and thus contributed to the formation of Russian national variant of neoclassicism practiced during the reign of Alexander I.

Jean-François Thomas was born in a third estate family in Paris and has demonstrated talents in graphic arts since early childhood. His early works, preserved in the archive of Jean-Claude Richard, were influenced by Jean-Honoré Fragonard and Hubert Robert. At the age of 17 Thomas was admitted to the class of Julien-David Le Roy at the Académie royale d'architecture, and trained there along with Karl von Moreaux, Charles Percier and Pierre François Léonard Fontaine. All his attempts to win a state scholarship for a study tour of Italy failed, and in 1785 he left for Rome on his own account, and attended the classes of the French Academy in Rome as a stowaway along with legitimate students. His squatting in Rome continued for years; Thomas risked being expelled from the Academy had it not been for the patronage of François-Guillaume Ménageot.

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