Achille Etna Michallon (24 October 1796 - 24 September 1822), French painter.
He was the son of Claude Michallon, a sculptor who had won the famous Prix de Rome in 1785. He grew up at the Louvre, where his family had a small apartment, near his father's studio. By the age of six, Achille moved with his family to Sorbonne.
A precocius and impressive talent, he worked in the beginning in the studio of Jacques-Louis David, where he studied drawing, then in the studio of Valenciennes, who convinced him to begin painting landscapes. At the age of 15, in 1812, Michallon exhibited at the Parisian Salon for the first time and won a second prize gold medal, a achievement that provoked many comments at the time.
He later worked under the patronage of famous and rich personalities, such as Prince Yussoupoff, the Duchess of Berry, the Count de L'Espine. In 1817 he won the newly founded Prix de Rome for historical landscape. Michallon managed to revitalise the art of landscape painting, and was considered a master, having a cricle of admiring young artists, one of them being Camille Corot.
His larger landscapes remainded him of Poussin, marked by drama and grandeur. He continued to work in such a manner in the period where he worked in Rome, between 1817 - 1821, with a touch of romanticism. Unfortunatelly the early death of the artist didn't give him the chance to fully use his talent, so he left behin only a few finished canvases, but also a large and fascinating collection of studies, drawings and sketches
