Although their careers did not follow a similar course, the attribution of their works has frequently been confused.When in 1775 Vien was named director of the French Academy in Rome, Sablet accompanied him there.
In rome he painted Le premier pas de l'enfance (Primi passi, in Italian) (1789): today that painting belongs to Pedriali Collection (Collezione Pedriali), in the City Museum of Forlì (Italy).
His ambition was to be a history painter, but facing competition from Jacques-Louis David and Pierre Peyron, among others, and lacking solid academic training, he could win no commissions.
Instead he turned to portraiture, genre painting, and landscape painting.
Most of his genre scenes depicted the city's everyday life and customs of the Campagna.Jacques-Henri Sablet shared a studio with history painter Hubert Drouais and was friends with Simon Denis.
He fled to Florence in 1793 with the rise of anti-French sentiment in the Papal States, but perhaps because of the competition he would face there from Louis Gauffier he soon returned to Paris.
He accompanied Lucien Bonaparte when the latter was named ambassador to Madrid in 1800, serving as an adviser on his art collection.He died in Paris in 1803.