 Charles Antoine Coypel, first painter to the king, was given the responsibility of training and educating the young Abel-François Poisson de Vandières.With Coypel's help, Poisson de Vandières chose paintings from the royal collection for exhibition at the Palais du Luxembourg, thus creating the first museum in France.Between December 1749 and September 1751, he spent twenty-five months in Italy, staying first at the Académie de France à Rome, and then travelling (the so-called "Grand Tour") across the country with the engraver Charles Nicolas Cochin, the architect Jacques-Germain Soufflot and the abbé Leblanc.