French painter and draughtsman. In 1764 he entered the studio of Noël
Hall, whose work strongly influenced his early paintings. Alexander Cutting the Gordian Knot (Paris, Ecole Normal Suprieur des Beax-Arts), with which he won the Prix de Rome in 1767, is a brilliant exercise in the grand academic style as conceived by the followers of Franois
Boucher. After a period at the Ecole Royale des Eleves Protgs he completed his training at the Acadmie de France in Rome from 1771 to 1774. Before his departure for Rome he had already gained a successful reputation based on the ceiling he executed on commission from the Comte de Saint-Florentin. He arrived in Rome in October, 1770, and correspondence from the director of the Acadmie Franais, Charles-Joseph Natoire to the Surintendent des Btiments, Marigny, praised his work.
Although he formed friendships with the painters Franois-Guillaume
Mnageot, Franois-Andr
Vincent and Joseph-Benoît
Suve and the architects Pierre-Adrien Pris and Jean-Jacques-Marie Huv, his artistic activity during his years in Rome is obscure. A number of spectacular drawings in red chalk, such as those of the Villa d Este, Tivoli (Orlans, Muse des Beaux-Arts) and the Villa Colonna and Villa Negroni (Valence, Muss des Beax-Arts), are the only evidence of Berthlemy s talent for landscape, while an oil study of a Dying Warrior (Los Angeles, County Museum of Art) is the only known surviving example of the works he was obliged, like the other pensionnaires, to send to Paris for scrutiny. Fragonard, traveling in the company of the collector Bergeret de Grancourt, visited Berthlemy and noted a study of
Raphael and
Michelangelo. He returned to Paris in 1774 and was agr as a history painter.
Most of his commissions were large-scale public works including two ceilings for the Hôtel de la Vrillière and for the Embassy of Austria. He had a variety of interests during his life: in 1791 he became an official costume designer for the Opra, in 1796 he was appointed to a commission for the research of science and art in Italy, and returned there for some time obtaining works for a Paris exhibition. He acted as curator of the Central Museum of Arts between 1798-1810, and his last works include frescoes for the Muse des Antiquits at the Louvre.