Painter, born in Paris, France. A prolific painter, he achieved fame with his pastel portraits. He left Paris when he was eclipsed by his rival Maurice Quentin de la Tour. From c.1755 he travelled widely, obtaining commissions in the French provinces, Italy, England, and Russia, before settling in Holland, where he died. His works include Girl with a Kitten (1745) and Portrait of a Man.
Perronneau began his career as an engraver, apparently studying with Laurent Cars, whose portrait he drew, and working for the printseller Huquier, rue Saint-Jacques, Paris, making his first portraits in oils, and especially in pastels, in the 1740s. His career was much in the shadow of the master of the French pastel portrait, Maurice Quentin de La Tour. In the Salon of 1750, Perronneau exhibited his pastel portrait of Maurice-Quentin de la Tour, but found to his dismay that La Tour was exhibited his own self portrait, perhaps a malicious confrontation to demonstrate his superiority in the technique.
He made his Salon debut with a pastel portrait in 1746 and received full membership in the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1753, with portraits of fellow artist Jean-Baptiste Oudry and the sculptor Lambert-Sigisbert Adam, both now at the Louvre Museum.
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