Little is known about this artist who was born in Beaucaire. He was a pupil of Regnault, and entered the L'Ecole de l'Académie Royale in 1788, and exhibited at the Salon in 1799. Bellier and Auvray believed the artist to be the same as Michel Rabillion, a portraitist, miniaturist and pasteliste, who was born c. 1735. The initial of the artist's first name in the signature of the present painting, disproved this theory