Antoine de Favray (1706–c.1791)

• Was a French painter.
• Favray was born at Bagnolet, near Paris, in France, on September 8, 1706.
• He is first referred to as an artist in 1738 when, aged 32, he travelled to Rome as the personal pupil of Jean-François de Troy.
• He spent the next six years at Rome.
• On July 1, 1744, de Troy wrote that Favray had just left for Malta. 
• In Malta, his career took a different turn to that of his colleagues of the French Academy.
• He was now established as the leading painter in Malta.
• In 1761, he obtained permission to sail to Constantinople and, in fact, he lived in the Turkish Empire from 1762 till 1771. 
• He painted numerous genre scenes of the everyday life in Turkey under Louis XVI, and he also depicted locals and foreign dignitaries.
• When he returned to Malta via Marseilles, he brought with him many drawings which he was to use later for several subsequent works.
• Favray died in Valletta on February 9, 1798, aged 91, and was buried in the Order’s Conventual Church of St John.
• Next