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| Pierre Subleyras Diana and Endymion 1740 oil on canvas National Gallery, London |
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| Pierre Subleyras Modello for Crucifixion of St Peter ca. 1740 oil on canvas National Galleries of Scotland |
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| Pierre Subleyras Crucifixion of St Peter ca. 1740 oil on canvas Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig |
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| Pierre Subleyras Figure of Justice before 1749 oil on canvas Musée Thomas-Henry, Cherbourg |
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| Pierre Subleyras Charon Ferrying the Shades ca. 1735-40 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
"Born in Uzès in Languedoc in 1699, Pierre Subleyras was a student of his father Mathieu, an artist of no distinction, and of the painter Antoine Rivalz. After 1723 he was in Paris, where he soon won fame and the Prix de Rome. From 1728 until the end of his life in 1749 he was active entirely in Italy, to which he felt additionally bound by having married a Roman wife. Through the example of his sensitive, carefully shaded art, deliberate in regard to economy and simplification of means, Subleyras must be judged to have been of considerable importance in the development of classicizing taste. The celebrated masters of French painting under Louis XIV and his successor – artists such as Charles Le Brun, J.-F. de Troy, and Charles-Joseph Natoire – were unable, despite the respected status assumed by the French Academy in Rome, to exert any strong influence on Italian painters. The monumental school of Italian painting, in particular, took little notice of their artistic aspirations. The "ingenious" element in their works had as little appeal to Italian taste as did the element of the galante and social conviviality in the French interpretation of noble subject matter and the almost miniature-like slickness and meticulous polish of their painting technique. Subleyras was able to adapt himself to the Roman tradition in a far more organic manner than were his French compatriots. He retained from his French training a precision and finesse of drawing technique as well as a somewhat affected nobility in the poses and gestures of his figures; but he also understood how to infuse his compositions with a quality of radiant quietude and grandeur which, however un-Italian it might be in its formal language, could have been developed only on Roman soil. It is revealing that the artist refused a prestigious and advantageous summons to return to his native land in order not to have to leave Rome."
– Hermann Voss, from Baroque Painting in Rome (1925), revised and translated by Thomas Pelzel (San Francisco: Alan Wofsy, 1997)
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| Pierre Subleyras Portrait of Pope Benedict XIV 1746 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Pierre Subleyras Portrait of Giovanna Bagnara ca. 1739 oil on canvas Walters Art Museum, Baltimore |
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| Pierre Subleyras Portrait of Horatio Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford ca. 1746 oil on canvas Temple Newsam House, Leeds |
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| Pierre Subleyras Portrait of a Gentleman ca. 1745 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
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| Pierre Subleyras Portrait of Frederick Christian of Saxony 1739 oil on canvas Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden |
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| Pierre Subleyras San Juan de Àvila 1746 oil on canvas Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (West Midlands) |
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| Pierre Subleyras La Courtisane Amoureuse (illustration to La Fontaine) ca. 1735 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
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| Pierre Subleyras The Duke of Saint-Aignan investing Girolamo Vaini, Prince of Cantalupe & Duke of Selci with the insignia of a Knight of the Holy Spirit 1737 oil on canvas private collection |
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| Pierre Subleyras Modello for Embarkation of St Paula for the Holy Land ca. 1738-39 oil on canvas Hatton Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne |
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| Pierre Subleyras Académie before 1749 oil on canvas Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, County Durham |