AFTER THE ANTIQUE, BY AUGUSTIN FELIX FORTIN, DATED 1819

Augustin Felix Fortin (1763-1832) was a painter and sculptor who lived for most of his life in Paris. He won the Prix de Rome for sculpture in 1783, and was admitted to the Academy. Like his slightly younger compatriot Ingres, he was able to continue to work and exhibit at the Louvre throughout the troubled time of the Revolution and in its aftermath principally because he worked in an uncompromisingly classical style, and classicism with its inherent admiration for the works of ancient Greece and Rome dominated the artistic establishment of the time.