In 1750 he left his native Metz for Paris, where he became one of the best pupils of the painters François Boucher and Joseph-Marie Vien; his early works are close to the Rococo manner of his teachers.
1758
Arrival in Russia
In 1758, at the invitation of Count I. I. Shuvalov, he arrived in Russia with a group of artists to work at the newly founded Academy of Arts; he lived and worked in St. Petersburg and Moscow, where two of his brothers and a sister were already living.
1758–1762
Travels in Finland, Lithuania, and Siberia
During his five years in Russia he traveled through Finland, Lithuania, and Siberia (according to some scholars, only as far as Kazan); on the empress's instructions he made sketches of "Russian types."
1765
The "Russian Series" at the Salon of 1765
He presented fifteen paintings of scenes from Russian village life at the Salon of 1765, including The Russian Baptism, which earned Diderot's enthusiastic praise, and The Cradle, which he repeated many times.
1768
Pioneer of Aquatint
In 1768 he was the first artist to introduce aquatint into his etchings; he may indeed have been the inventor of this tonal technique, later made famous by Goya. In the history of printmaking he is also known as the inventor of the lavis technique.
