Meiffren Conte came from the Marseilles area where his father was an officer for the Judge of Saint-Michel. In 1651 he travelled to Italy where he studied still life painting, particularly the work of the Maltese artist Francesco Fieravino who had been active in Rome in the 1640's. Conte returned to France in 1654, the year of his marriage and settled in Aix-en-Provence with his friend, the German artist Rodolphe Ziegler. In 1671 he moved to Paris where he came into contact with the artists of the Gobelins factory and the Court of Louis XIV, returning to Marseilles in 1675 where he was made Master Painter of the Galleries du Roi.

Though from provincial France, Meiffren Conte was well regarded in his own time. The influential theorist and historian André Félibien noting 'Il a excellé dans la représentation des tapis, des armures et des ouvrages d'orfèvrerie qu'il a traités en peinture dans un extrême degré de verité.'