Baron Fran?ois-Xavier Fabre

(b Montpellier, 1 April 1766; d Montpellier, 16 March 1837). French painter, printmaker and collector. He was taught by the painter Jean Coustou (1719-91) in Montpellier before entering, in 1783, the studio of David, to whose artistic principles he remained faithful all his life. His career as a history painter began brilliantly when, in 1787, he won the Prix de Rome for Nebuchadnezzar Ordering the Execution of Zedekiah's Children (Paris, Ecole N. Sup. B.-A.). This early success was consolidated by the four years he spent at the Acad?mie de France in Rome and by the enthusiastic reception of his Death of Abel (1790; Montpellier, Mus. Fabre; see fig.) at the Salon of 1791.

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