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Taillasson was born at Blaye, near Bordeaux. His poem "Le Danger des règles dans les Arts" was noted with approval by the Danish visitor to Paris, Tønnes Christian Bruun-Neergaard, and an elegy "Sur la Nuit", he thought, seemed fit to soften the least sensitive heart. He matured his talent in the Paris ateliers of Joseph-Marie Vien (from 1764) and Nicolas Bernard Lépicié and, having won third place in the Prix de Rome competition, 1769, spent four years, 1773–77, in Italy. At his return to Paris he set an early example of neoclassicism.
His Observations sur quelques grands peintres offered anti-academic advice somewhat at variance with his own manner; some of the collected observations had previously appeared in the Journal des Arts. He died in Paris.
Selected works
Self Portrait, Musée du Louvre
Jeune Homme, vêtu d'une robe, levant les bras, Musée du Louvre
Ulysse et Néoptolème enlevant à Philoctète les flèches d'Hercule, 1784 Musée des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux; this was his morceau de reception at the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture.
Sabinus et Eponina découverts par les soldats de Vespasien 1787
Virgil reading the 'Aeneid' to Augustus and Octavia, 1787 (National Gallery, London)
Léandre et Héro, 1789 Musée des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux
"Seigneur! Voyez ces yeux" (Cleopatra of Syria is discovered by Rodogune to have poisoned the nuptial cup, a scene from Pierre Corneille's Rodogune (1644), 1791 Boston Museum of Fine Arts; Tønnes Christian Bruun-Neergaard considered that it had established the painter's reputation, and remarked that it had belonged to Citoyen Godefroy, a well-known amateur, who auction dsaletranspired in 1794.
Pauline, femme de Sénèque, rappelée à la vie, 1791 Musée du Louvre
Olympias, 1799
Andromache, 1800
Rhadamate et Zénobie, 1806
Spring (or Flora) leading Cupid back to Nature (Bowes Museum, County Durham, UK)
