 Recalling his homesickness and loneliness the last time he had ventured abroad , for his next foreign trip Etty travelled in the company of Richard Evans , who had been a fellow student of Thomas Lawrence . Despite warnings that Italy would be uncomfortably hot , the two men set out on 23 June 1822 with the aim of reaching Rome . Crossing to France by means of the recently developed steamboat , they arrived in Paris on 26 June . They stayed in Paris for two weeks , visiting Versailles and the city 's public art galleries ; they also visited the much @-@ reduced remaining exhibits of the Louvre . The Louvre was hosting an exhibition of modern French painting at the time , at which Etty felt a great dislike for the quality of portraiture in France , but he was nonetheless greatly impressed by the permanent collections , in particular Rubens 's Marie de ' Medici cycle , elements of which he would later reuse in many of his own works . 
