Jean-Baptiste Marie Huet (Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, 15 October 1745–Paris, 27 January 1811) was a French painter, engraver and designer associated with pastoral and genre scenes of animals in the Rococo

Rococo

Rococo , also referred to as "Late Baroque", is an 18th-century style which developed as Baroque artists gave up their symmetry and became increasingly ornate, florid, and playful...

 manner, influenced by François Boucher

François Boucher

François Boucher was a French painter, a proponent of Rococo taste, known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories representing the arts or pastoral occupations, intended as a sort of two-dimensional furniture...

.

Born into a family of artists— his uncle was Christophe Huet, his father Nicolas Huet—he apprenticed with the animal painter Charles Dagomer, a member of the painters' guild, the Académie de Saint-Luc, Paris, who was working in the 1760s. Huet’s interest in printmaking and his acquaintance with Gilles Demarteau, who later engraved many of his compositions, both date from this period. About 1764 Huet entered the studio of Jean-Baptiste Le Prince

Jean-Baptiste Le Prince

Jean-Baptiste Le Prince was an important French etcher and painter. Le Prince first studied painting techniques in his native Metz. He then travelled to Paris around 1750 and became a leading student of the great painter, François Boucher...

, where he further developed his printmaking skills, largely reproducing his own paintings, a method of publishing them with some profit.

In 1768 he was approved (agréé) by the Académie Royale

Académie de peinture et de sculpture

The Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture , Paris, was founded in 1648, modelled on Italian examples, such as the Accademia di San Luca in Rome. Paris already had the Académie de Saint-Luc, which was a city artist guild like any other Guild of Saint Luke...

, and 29 July 1769 he was received (reçu) in the minor category (petite manière) of painter of animals and was well received in the public reviews when he began to exhibit at the Paris Salon

Paris Salon

The Salon , or rarely Paris Salon , beginning in 1725 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. Between 1748–1890 it was the greatest annual or biannual art event in the Western world...

 that same year, with a Dog Attacking Geese, now at the Louvre

Louvre

The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...

. He continued to exhibit annually until 1789, through his attempts at the grand manner of history painting, considered the noblest genre

Genre

Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...

, were not met with approval.

The most important of his paintings were his morceau de réception, the Fox among the Chickens (San Francisco

San Francisco, California

San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

, California Palace of the Legion of Honor

California Palace of the Legion of Honor

The California Palace of the Legion of Honor is a fine art museum in San Francisco, California...

), The Dairymaid (Paris, Musée Cognacq-Jay

Musée Cognacq-Jay

The Musée Cognacq-Jay is a museum located in the Hôtel Donon in the 3rd arrondissement at 8 rue Elzévir, Paris, France. It is open daily except Monday; admission is free...

).

Huet is equally known for his designs for the decorative arts. He provided scenic vignettes to be printed by copperplate on cottons at the manufacture of toiles de Jouy directed by Oberkampf. Lengths of these may be seen at The Detroit Institute of Arts, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs

Musée des Arts Décoratifs

Musée des Arts Décoratifs, a museum of the decorative arts and design, 107 rue de Rivoli, Paris 1er, France. It is part of Les Arts Décoratifs.-The museum:...

, the Victoria and Albert Museum

Victoria and Albert Museum

The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...

, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and many other institutions. His ink-and-wash drawings and studies of animals and children are also admired.

In the 1780s he provided tapestry cartoon

Cartoon

A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...

s for the manufacture at Beauvais. A suite of thirteen hangings of pastoral

Pastoral

The adjective pastoral refers to the lifestyle of pastoralists, such as shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasturage. It also refers to a genre in literature, art or music that depicts such shepherd life in an...

s was in the Isaac de Camondo bequest to the Louvre. In 1790 he remained attached to the reorganized and combined tapestry

Tapestry

Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven on a vertical loom, however it can also be woven on a floor loom as well. It is composed of two sets of interlaced threads, those running parallel to the length and those parallel to the width ; the warp threads are set up under tension on a...

 manufacture of Gobelins

Gobelins manufactory

The Manufacture des Gobelins is a tapestry factory located in Paris, France, at 42 avenue des Gobelins, near the Les Gobelins métro station in the XIIIe arrondissement...

and Beauvais.