Dominique Louis Féréol Papety (French, 1815–1849)
Portrait of a Young Man, 1840
Graphite on ivory laid paper
A native of Marseilles, Papety entered the studio of Léon Cogniet in Paris, and in 1836 won the Prix de Rome. His residency there in the Villa Medici stirred his interest in Greek and Roman art, and today he is best remembered for the Neo-Greco academic paintings that were inspired by travels to Greece in 1846 and 1847.
Papety drew this precisely rendered, unsentimental portrait during his stay in Rome. It does not have the look of French Romantic art of the period, but displays instead the influence of the German Nazarene artists who were working in Italy at the time.