The Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture (Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture), Paris, was founded in 1648, modelled on Italian examples, such as the Accademia di San Luca in Rome. Paris already had the Académie de Saint-Luc, which was a city artist guild like any other Guild of Saint Luke. The purpose of this academy was to professionalize the artists working for the French court and give them a stamp of approval that artists of the St. Luke's guild did not have.
In 1661, it came under the control of Jean-Baptiste Colbert who made the arts a main part in the glorification of Louis XIV. From 1683 on, it reached its greatest power under the directorship of Charles Le Brun with its hierarchy of members and strict system of education. In 1749 the École des Élèves Protégés was set up as a separate school within the Académie, to give three years' specialist training to winners of the Prix de Rome so that they might make better use of their time in Rome[1] - its alumni included Pierre Julien, Jean Guillaume Moitte and Jean-Joseph Foucou.
On August 8, 1793, the Académie was suspended by the revolutionary National Convention, when the latter decreed the abolition of "toutes les académies et sociétés littéraires patentées ou dotées par la Nation".
It was later renamed Académie de peinture et de sculpture.
The "Académie de peinture et sculpture" is also responsible for the Académie de France in the villa Médicis in Rome (founded in 1666) which allows promising artists to study in Rome.
In 1816, it was merged with the Académie de musique (Academy of Music, founded in 1669) and the Académie d'architecture (Academy of Architecture, founded in 1671), to form the Académie des beaux-arts, one of the five academies of the Institut de France.
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