During a productive career as a painter at the Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory, Charles-Eloi Asselin became one of the factory's principal figure painters. Although he had probably already studied painting at the Académie Royale in Paris before starting at Sèvres, he was first ordered to paint cherubs, pastoral scenes, and flower sprays like other apprentices. After several years of work, he graduated to painting military scenes, allegories, and, during the French Revolution, republican images. Asselin also painted scenes in oils or gouache and was given the task of producing four overdoor paintings for the grand salon of the manufactory. He also probably wrote an instruction manual for painting flowers, which was dedicated to the wife of the British Ambassador. Asselin eventually became head of the painters' workshop. (http://www.getty.edu/art/collections/bio/a1202-1.html)