Achille Michallon, the son of the sculptor Claude Michallon (1751-1799), who had won the prix de Rome in 1785, grew up in the Louvre where his parents had an apartment adjacent to his father's studio. At the age of six, while the Louvre was being renovated, they moved to artist's lodgings in the Sorbonne. Already exhibiting a precocious talent, Michallon first entered the studio of David, where he studied the art of drawing the human form, before joining that of Valenciennes. Under the latter's tutelage he developed his interest in landscape and took instruction from two of Valenciennes' pupils, Dunouy and Bertin. In 1812, at the age of fifteen he exhibited for the first time at the Salon, receiving a second prize gold medal - an astonishing achievement which excited much comment at the time.