French painter (1696–1775)
Étienne Parrocel known as Le Romain (Avignon, 8 January 1696 - Rome, 26 August or 12 January 1775 or 1776) was a French painter working in Rome in the eighteenth century.
Biography.
The son of Jacques-Ignace Parrocel and Jeanne Marie Périer, he belonged to a prolific dynasty of artists who generated fourteen painters in six generations.
He was a pupil of his Carthusian brother Gabriel Imbert (1666-1749). His uncle Pierre, who, after a period of study in France, in 1717 c., accompanied him to Rome to deepen his knowledge of painting with cousins Pierre Ignace and Joseph François. Étienne stayed in Italy in Rome and for this reason he was called Le Romain. He became a member of the National Academy of San Luca in 1734.
His first patron was Pierre Guérin de Tencin, bishop of Embrun, who in 1724 commissioned a painting representing the ceremony of his investiture, now lost.
From that time on, Étienne began to receive regular and numerous commissions, as he was skilled in both oil painting and fresco painting and became particularly well known for his works on religious themes, destined for churches in Rome and its surrounding area and churches in southern France.
His paintings with religious subjects include: "Saint Gregory at the poor man's table" (1729; Rome, San Gregorio a Ponte Quattro Capi), "Nativity" (1739, Rome, Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere), "Trinity" (1739, for the dome of Santa Maria Maddalena in Rome), two paintings for the altars of Carpentras Cathedral (1744; "Saints Augustine and Bernard in situ" and "Saints Joseph and Dominic" gone lost) and "The Incredulity of Saint Thomas" (1758; Spoleto, Municipal Picture Gallery), the painting for the high altar of the church of Santa Maria in Monticelli and the one for the high altar of the church of San Luigi di Francia, representing the apotheosis of Joan of Valois, founder of the order of the Annunziata. Nicolaus Billy made an engraving from the latter painting.
In addition to religious subjects, he also painted portraits such as that of Pierre Guérin de Tencin, engraved by Johann Georg Wille, and those of Cardinals Giovanni Battista Spinola, Melchior de Polignac, Pompeo Aldrovandi and Corsini.
In 1746 he painted an allegorical fresco having as subjects literature and philology represented by Apollo and Mercury for the library of Cardinal Neri Corsini in Palazzo Corsini in Rome.
According to Pilkington and de Boni, Étienne was born around 1720 and was also an engraver: he made etchings from his own drawings, in particular a Bacchanalian and also "The Triumph of Mordecai" by De Troy and The "Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne" by Subleyras. Instead, according to Parrocel (pg.83) and the Grove Dictionary of Art, Étienne was born in 1696 and never made etchings.