Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Villiers, François Huet
VILLIERS, FRANÇOIS HUET (1772?–1813), painter, son of Jean-Baptiste Huet, a French artist of repute, was born in Paris about 1772, and studied under his father. He exhibited portraits at the Paris salon in 1799, 1800, and 1801, and then settled in London. He was a versatile artist, drawing landscapes, animals, and architecture, but excelled in his portraits in miniature and oils. He was appointed miniature-painter to the Duke and Duchess of York, his portraits of whom were engraved, as were also those of Louis XVIII, the Duke and Duchess of Angoulême, the Duc d'Enghien, and Mrs. Quentin. Villiers painted many actresses and other ladies in mythological characters, and his ‘Hebe’ was very popular and frequently engraved. He exhibited largely at the Royal Academy and other exhibitions from 1803 until his death, and was one of the ‘Associated Artists in Watercolours’ from 1808 to 1812. He published two sets of etchings—‘Rudiments of Cattle,’ 1805, and ‘Rudiments and Characters of Trees,’ 1806—and made the drawings for some of the plates in Ackermann's ‘Westminster Abbey.’ Villiers died in Great Marlborough Street, London, on 27 July 1813, and was buried in St. Pancras churchyard.
[Gent. Mag. 1813, ii. 197; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Dussieux's Artistes Français à l'Étranger; Roget's Hist. of the ‘Old Water-colour’ Soc.]