François-Xavier Fabre
(Montpellier, 1776 – 1837)
François-Xavier Fabre (1 April 1766 – 16 March 1837) was a French painter of historical subjects, printmaker and collector.
Fabre was a pupil of Jacques-Louis David, and made his name by winning the Prix de Rome in 1787.
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.
During the French Revolution, Fabre went to live in Florence, becoming a member of the Florentine Academy, where he taught painting.
Fabre specialized in half-length portraits, popular with the British community in Florence, and also continued to paint history pictures and landscapes. He became an enthusiastic collector and is now best known for his collection of sixteenth and seventeenth-century Italian paintings, which is housed in the Musée Fabre in his native Montpellier.