Antoine de Favray


Chevalier Antoine de Favray was a French painter noted for his portraits of personalities of the Ottoman Empire, as well as paintings of Grand Masters of the Sovereign [Military Order of Malta].

Life and career

In 1762, Antoine de Favray moved to Constantinople, where he spent nine years. He painted numerous genre scenes of the everyday life in Turkey under Louis XVI, and he also depicted locals and foreign dignitaries. Especially notable are a portrait of French ambassador Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes, who was living in Constantinople between 1754 and 1768, and a portrait of Gravier's wife Annette Duvivier de Testa. She had previously been married to Testa, a merchand and member of a prominent Genoese family who settled in Pera for several centuries. Favray portrayed both the ambassador and his wife in rich Turkish dress.