Louis Chaix

Painter and draftsman from Aubagne, Louis Chaix trained at the Academy of Marseille before dividing his career between Marseille and Paris. Thanks to his patron Joseph Borely, Chaix stayed in Rome from 1771 to 1777. There he met the residents of the Academy of France with whom he drew in nature on the spot. Chaix thus produced large landscape drawings in black chalk and sometimes in red chalk, which today testify to his interest in ruined ancient monuments. Back in Marseille, he was appointed professor at the Academy in 1789. The latter being less active because of the Revolution, Chaix settled in Paris around 1800 and exhibited at the Salon of 1802 and 1804. He died in Paris in 1810.