Born in Arles in 1760, Jacques Réattu is the natural child of a gentleman of Montpellier, Guillaume de Barrême de Chateaufort and of Catherine Raspal, sister of the painter from Arles Antoine Raspal. It is the latter which teaches the rudiments of its art to him, before the young man does not leave to Paris to study in the workshops of Julien de Regnault. He attends in addition, as of the fifteen years age, the courses of the Royal Academy of the Art schools.

In 1790, the painter obtains the Grand Prix of Rome, with following work: Daniel making stop the accusing old men of pure Suzanne. In the Eternal City, Réattu works much, copying the antiques, drawing landscapes or carrying out works that each pupil was to return regularly.

There, he embraces the ideals of the Revolution and starts to translate into painting the precepts of the new mode with Prométhée concealing crowned fire (1792). Obliged to flee Rome at the time of the reactions antirévolutionnaires, it gains Naples, then Marseilles. It launches out then in great compositions to the glory of the Revolution like the Triumph of Civilization (1793) or the Triumph of Freedom (1794). Especially, it is charged with the decoration of the church of the Preachers of Marseilles which was to be transformed into temple of the Reason (1794-1795). He proposed ten greyness, of which eights were carried out and six are always preserved at the museum.

At 38 years, Réattu is of return in its birthplace and Marie. From 1802, it seems to give up any artistic activity until 1818. It then carries out works on topics inspired by the Metamorphoses of Ovide and launches out in projects of large decorations, unfortunately lost, like the ceiling of the Large Theater of Marseilles with Apollon and the Muses throwing of the flowers over Time (1828), or ever carried out, like its proposals for the theater of Nimes or the town hall of Marseilles. In 1827-1829, it carries out three fabrics on the History of Paul saint for the church Saint-Paul de Beaucaire, including one splendid composition which counts among its more beautiful works.

With his return to Arles, Jacques Réattu dreams of a large workshop. However, the two buildings of the Great Priory about Malta, seized in 1792, are sold like national goods. The artist, allured by the beauty of the places, acquires the commandery of Saliers since 1796. As for the Great Priory, divided into twenty-six batches, it buys it piece per piece between 1801 and 1827 in the idea to make some, inspired by the landscape in edge of river, a place of creation intended for the artists. The prefiguration, all in all, of famous “the Workshop of the South” of which Van Gogh will dream some sixty years later. One also owes to Jacques Réattu the acquisition and the safeguard of part of the tower of the old abbey of Montmajour.