At first I thought it was a copy after a work from Pierre-Paul Sevin (1646-1710), a French painter mostly known for his creations of backdrops and decorations for festivities at the Versailles Palace, and not so much for independent, traditional paintings. This was the name given as artist on commercial sites like Alamy and Magnoliabox.
However, some further research showed me that Getty Images gave a different artist, Claude Sevin (1750 - ?). This lead me to an old guide for the Toulouse Museum, which discussed this painting and identified the artist quite convincingly. It was a work intended for the yearly Prix de Rome contest for young artists, which in 1776 had as theme "Alexander and Diogenes". He won a second prize with this painting. He never achieved the first prize, and either ended his career as painter early or perhaps became a minor portrait painter. Basically, this work was the zenith of his career... How and when it moved from the Toulouse Museum to the Nîmes one is unknown to me.
It seems probable that Claude Sevin was a descendant of Pierre-Paul Sevin, as both came from the same city, Tournon (just like Pierre-Paul's father François, another painter).
The copy may seem rather mediocre at first sight, but this is mainly due to the very tiny scale of it: only 10 by 15 cm! When one takes this into consideration, and seeing how little known the painter and this work is (which makes it less likely that someone would have painted a copy of it), I have to wonder if this isn't the original small-scale design for the much larger finished work. Even so, he is a barely known painter, so the price won't be spectacularly changed by finding the artist.
UPDATE: sold for 4960 Euro. I wonder if whoever bought it knew the things I posted here or had read my blog before the sale!
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