Louis Jean Desprez

Louis Jean Desprez (occasionally but incorrectly Jean Louis Desprez) (28 May 1743–18 March 1804) was a French painter and architect who worked in Sweden during the last twenty years of his life.

Biography Desprez, who was born in Auxerre in Bourgogne, France. He studied architecture and was awarded the Great Prize of the Académie royale d'architecture in 1776. He lived in Italy from 1777 to 1784 and was associated with Piranesi in Rome. He came to the attention of King Gustav III of Sweden, who offered him a two-year contract as director of scenic decorations at the new Stockholm Opera founded by the King two years earlier. His first task there was the decorations for the new opera Gustaf Wasa (with a libretto authored by the King in collaboration with Johan Henric Kellgren and music by Johann Gottlieb Naumann).

His most significant completed project was the conservatory building in the new botanical garden in Uppsala, inaugurated after his death on May 13, 1807, the 100th anniversary of Linnaeus's birth. He also built the Villa Frescati in 1791-92 for Gustaf Mauritz Armfelt, after which the whole Frescati area in Stockholm later was named.

Selected works