Jean-Baptiste Marie Fouque

Born in Arles in 1819, the son of the locksmith Honorat Fouque and Marguerite Barbier, Jean-Baptiste studied painting under the Arlesian painter and archaeologist François Huard. He was awarded a scholarship from the city council of Arles, to study at the Beaux-Arts de Paris. There, he studied under the direction of Joseph-Léon de Lestang-Parade and Léon Cogniet. In 1854 he married Marie Perrine Leray, a seamstress from Rennes. The couple had two sons: Émile, born in 1849, and Adrien, born in 1855.

The first exhibition of Fouque's art was in 1846, and resulted in a steady stream of commissions for the government of the Second French Empire. He produced portraits of both Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie de Montijo, as well as many foreign nobles and royals such as Princess Tatiana Alexandrovna Yusupova of Russia and Rama V, the King of Siam.

In addition to his portraiture, Fouque painted many allegorical and religious works. In 1863, he returned to Arles to paint several altarpieces and other works for the Church of Saint Trophime and the Church of Saint Cesaire.

Several of Fouque's paintings are in the collection of the Hermitage Museum.[2]

• The Sculptor Pradier, Museum of Art and History, Geneva
• Portrait of Rama V, Bang Pa-In Royal Palace, Thailand
• Portrait of Tatiana Alexandrovna Yusupova, State Museum of the History of St. Petersburg
• The Assumption and The Meeting at the Golden Gate, Chapel of Saint Anne, Church of Saint Cesaire, Arles
• Saint Cesaire at the bedside of the prefect of Ravenna, Church of Saint Trophime, Arles
• Purgatory, Chapel for the Souls in Purgatory, Church of Saint Cesaire, Arles