Joseph-Marie Vien won the Prix de Rome after three years of study with Charles-Joseph Natoire in Paris. After six years in Italy, Vien returned to Paris, and established his reputation as a painter of biblical, historical, and mythological subjects, a designer of tapestries for the Gobelins factory, and a respected teacher at the Académie Royale. Recognized for his talents, Vien became First Painter to the King and eventually director of the Académie de France in Rome. He taught with the principles he used in his paintings, stressing observation and study from life combined with a reverence for the antique, his influence felt through the students who would carry on his legacy: Jean-Baptiste Regnault, François Vincent, and Jacques-Louis David.