Subleyras was born in Uzès, in Provence, and studied first with Antoine Rivalz in Toulouse; his master soon recognised his talent and advised him to go to Paris where he entered the Academy schools in 1726. The following year he was awarded the Prix de Rome for a painting of Le Serpent d'airain (now in the Musée des Beaux Arts, Nîmes) and in 1728 joined the other students at the French Academy, then established in the Palazzo Mancini. There he married the miniaturist Maria Felice Tibaldi whose small copies of her husband’s paintings have allowed scholars to confirm some attributions; the young couple settled permanently in the Eternal City where Pierre soon established a formidable reputation as a portraitist, history, and genre painter.
