(The paintings reproduced here - all circa 1770s-90s - have fairly generic titles, and I didn't feel compelled to wade into the research necessary to include them.) *** Pierre-Jacques Volaire (30 April 30 1729, Toulon - 19 September 1799, Naples), French painter. From a well-known family of painters in Toulon, his own career got started in 1754, when the painter Joseph Vernet arrived in the city, sent by Louis XV to paint French ports. Vernet took Volaire as his assistant, and they traveled together for eight years; the younger artist would be strongly influenced by Vernet's compositional conceits and his dramatic use of moonlight. By 1764 Volaire had left for Rome where, for the next five years, he worked at painting landscapes and seascapes. He then moved on to Naples, where night scenes became his specialty. The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 1771 inspired Volaire to paint the moonlit scenes of volcanic eruptions that would make his reputation. He exhibited in Paris only three times. He was denied official recognition in France when, in 1786, he tried to sell one of his Vesuvius pictures to Louis XVI; at the time, the work of a landscape painter - especially one who employed sensational effects - was not seen to be very worthy. Volaire also created pastels and drawings, and his works were frequently engraved.