David Pierre Giottino Humbert de Superville was born on 20 July 1770 in The Hague. He registered at the Drawing Academy of The Hague in 1781. Having won the first prize at the academy in 1788, he travelled to Italy, where a new form of art was emerging, strongly influenced by classical antiquity and Renaissance art. The works of art that he encountered in Rome, and particularly those of the early Italian artists, strongly influenced Humbert’s development as an artist and a theorist. During his stay in Italy, Humbert made various studies and sketches of ancient works of art and highly expressive portraits, such as the series of portraits of Gagliuffi. During the raids in Rome around 1798 Humbert was imprisoned for some time by the army of the pope, a period that had a devastating influence on his health. After his release and a short stay in Paris, he returned to the Netherlands in 1802. First he found a job as a drawing teacher to military students in Hoorn and Rotterdam, later, after moving to Leiden, as the director of the Leiden drawing academy, Ars Aemula Naturae. In 1825 he was appointed director and curator of the Print Room and the Cabinet of Plaster Casts of Leiden University. He further developed his theories on the historical development of art and published his Essai sur les Signes inconditionnels dans l’Art in 1827. In the last few years of his life, Humbert’s drawings acquired a very dramatic and visionary character comparable to the works of Fuseli and Blake. Humbert died on 9 january 1849.