Portraits of Charles Percier, Pierre-Francois Leotard Fontaine and Claude-Louis Bernier, before 1807 (black & white...

Percier was born at Paris in 1764. In 1784, at age nineteen, he won the Prix de Rome, a government-funded fellowship for study in Rome. There he met Fontaine. One early product of their collaboarion was Palais, maisons et autres édifices modernes dessinés à Rome ("A palace, houses and other modern buildings designed in Rome"), which attracted the attention of prospective clients when they returned to Paris. At the end of 1792, near the end of the first phase of the French Revolution, Percier was appointed to supervise the scenery at the Paris Opéra, a post at the center of innovative design. Fontaine returned from the security of London, where he had been exiled, and they continued at the Opéra together until 1796. Claude-Louis Bernier (1755–1830) was a third member of their team.