Doyen, Gabriel Francois

Doyen, Gabriel Francois an eminent French painter, was born at Paris in 1726, and at the age of twenty gained the grand prize of the Royal Academy. In 1748 he went to Rome, and there studied the works of the great masters. He afterwards visited Venice, Bologna, and Parma, and after his return to Paris, in 1753, he executed his celebrated picture, representing A Group of Persons Attacked by the Plague, for the Church of St. Roch, and painted the chapel of St. Gregoryv aux-Invalides. He died at St. Petersburg, June 5, 1806. See Spooner, Biog. Hist. of the Fine Arts, s.v.; Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, s.v.