French painter. He entered the Académie Royale in 1772 as a pupil of Gabriel-François Doyen and Louis-Jacques Durameau. He won a medal in the drawing class in 1772 but did not reach the final of the Prix de Rome until 1776, when he won a second prize for Haman Confounded by Esther before Ahasuerus (untraced). He continued his attempts to win the Prix de Rome until 1780 without success, but in that year he was granted the bursary because the winner Jean-Pierre Saint-Ours was Swiss and therefore ineligible to go. In Rome from 1780 until 1784, Perrin followed the usual student practice of copying from the Old Masters (he was particularly attracted to the works of Caravaggio and Guercino) and painted original works to be sent to Paris for the judgement of the Académie. In 1784 one of these envois was particularly well received, and Perrin was encouraged 'not to abandon his noble simplicity'. //