Joseph-Benoît Suvée (Born 1743) was a Belgian Dutch painter. He started studying at the Royal Academy of Bruges at age eight. He practiced art and won many first prizes, after which he left for Paris in 1763 and enrolled at the Académie Royale in 1764. In 1771, Suvée won the Prix de Rome, and beat artists such as Jacques-Louis David, who complained that he used connections, something that might have been true. Initially, Suvée was a pupil of Matthias de Visch before he went to France aged nineteen where he was taught by Jean-Jacques Bachelier. He was named an academician when he returned to Paris and he opened an art school at the Louvre for young women. One of his students was Constance Mayer. Suvée competed with and emulated Jacques-Louis David, and earned his enduring hatred. In 1792 he was named the director of the French Academy in Rome - he replaced François-Guillaume Ménageot.
He was imprisoned shortly in the Prison Saint-Lazare and was only able to take up the post in 1801. His works included psychologically penetrating portraits, religious paintings, tapestry cartoons for the Gobelins Tapestry Manufactory, and official state commissions. Suvée often painted emotional scenes, and he treated them with neoclassical restraint, creating crisp and precise draperies, simple compositions, and idealized figures. He had many pupils including Jean-Joseph Beirens, Joseph Denis Odevaere, Jacques Albert Sénave, Guillielmus Petrus Geysen, Constance Mayer, to name but a few. After a long career several years, and a 6-years' stay in Rome as the Director of the Academy, he died there suddenly.
