Artists of the French Academy at the Villa Medici, 1817

L'Artiste dans sa chambre à la Villa Médicis, self-portrait by Léon Cogniet, 1817 or 18.

Louis Vincent Léon Pallière dans sa chambre à la Villa Médicis, by Jean Alaux, 1817.

L'Atelier de Picot à la Villa Médicis, by Jean Alaux, 1817.

Léon Cogniet (29 August 1794, Paris – 20 November 1880 Paris), French history and portrait painter. Winner of the Prix de Rome in 1817, he was resident at the Villa Medici from 1817 to 1822.

Jean Alaux (15 January 1786, Bordeaux – 2 March 1864, Paris), called "le Romain" ("the Roman"), French history painter and director of the French Academy in Rome from 1846-52. Son of a painter, brother to three painters, he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and won the Prix de Rome in 1815. He was a pensionnaire at the French Academy in Rome from 1816 to 1820.

Louis Vincent Léon Pallière (July 1787, Bordeaux - 28 December 1820, Bordeaux), French history painter. He won the Prix de Rome in 1812, and remained in Rome for five years.

François-Edouard Picot (October 10, 1786, Paris – March 15, 1868, Paris), painter of mythological, religious and historical subjects, won the Prix de Rome in 1813 and resided in Rome until 1817. He exhibited at the Paris Salon between 1819 and 1839, and was made an officer of the Légion d'honneur in 1832.

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These four artists became friends while they were pensionnaires of the French Academy at the Villa Medici in Rome, all having won the Prix de Rome.  It's interesting to compare the rooms in the first two paintings; they look to be adjacent, as they share almost exactly the same view.  The third appears to be on another side of the building, as the view - the basilica of Saint Peter's and the Castel Sant'Angelo can just be made out in the distance - and the direction of the light are different.