The Muse Melpomene

A pupil of Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre, Jollain was approved at the Académie Royale in 1765, and received as a history painter into the Académie in 1773. He received commissions for work at Marly and for the chapel at Fontainebleau. In 1788 he was made curator of the Musée du Roi and in 1792 formed part of the commission for the formation of a Musée National. He died in Paris in 1804. His Sleeping Child painted as a pendant for a picture by Taraval for the Queen's Bedchamber at Marly (now London, Wallace Collection) can be compared to the present picture.