On est né peintre comme on est né poëte

This essay analyzes three approaches to art education taken under the last Bourbon kings. The first, la petite pension du Roi (ca. 1683-1747), provided monthly stipends to promising but financially disadvantaged students of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture so that they might better concentrate on their work. The second, l’École royale des élèves protégés (1748-1775), was a three-year residential program to prepare a revolving group of six students who had received First Grands Prix to better understand the masterworks they would copy and emulate in Rome. The third, the petite école des élèves-artistes (1777-1790), was a residential program for an evolving group of twelve youngsters between 10 and 19 years of age judged to have a disposition for the arts. In each case, the ultimate goal was to create fine artists who would rival those of Italy and prove worthy of replacing those whom Death had seized from the Académie (“ceux que la mort raviroit à l’Académie”). Were these goals met? or, to put it another way, did the Crown invest wisely?