BERJON, Antoine

French painter, teacher and designer. According to his uncorroborated 19th-century biographer J. Gaubin (1856), he was intended for holy orders and began studying flower painting as a novice. Certainly he studied drawing under the sculptor Antoine-Michel Perrache (1726-79) and worked for Lyon’s silk industry as a textile designer, visiting Paris annually, ostensibly to keep abreast of the latest fashions. He first exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1791 and settled in Paris in about 1794, probably as a consequence of the catastrophic siege and destruction of Lyon by revolutionary forces the previous year. Initially he eked out a precarious living decorating snuff-boxes and painting miniatures, supported by friends such as Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, the poetess, and the miniature painter Jean-Baptiste Augustin, to whom Berjon dedicated The Gift (1797; Lyon, Musée des Beaux-Arts).

He contributed to seven Paris Salons between 1796 and 1819 and again in 1842, and he had built up a considerable reputation for his work by the early 19th century. On his return to Lyon in 1810 he succeeded Jean-François Bony (1760-1825) as professor of flower design at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.