Jacques François Joseph Swebach-Desfontaines was a painter and designer. He was first of all a pupil of his father and then of Michel Hamon-Duplessis in Paris, renowned for his military, battle and history scenes, he also painted genre scenes and landscapes. He worked at the Manufacture de Sèvres for which he created many cartoons. He was its first painter from 1802 to 1813, and then between 1815 and 1817 he directed the imperial porcelain factory in Saint Petersburg. Among his most remarkable works we must cite "Napoleon crossing the Danube" which won him the first grand prize at the Paris Salon where he exhibited very regularly from 1791 to 1824 as well as the equestrian portrait of Joséphine Bonaparte which he received an order i...