There are still many gaps in our knowledge of the life of Tournier and in fact information about his early career is practically non-existent. Descendant from a family of Besançon artists living in Montbéliard, a Lutheran enclave belonging to the Duke of Wurtemberg, he received his initial instruction from his father, André Tournier who was a painter of the traditional Northern Mannerist style.
He left Montbéliard quite early on to complete his training elsewhere. We believe that he stayed in Rome and Languedoc between 1610 and 1618 although there are no traces left over from these periods. There is simply mention of his residence in Rome between 1619 and 1626. However, extremely faithful copies of compositions by the painter Bartolomeo Manfredi have been attributed to Tournier and enable us to advance the hypothesis of a Roman stay well before 1619 and a training period in the studio of this master, one of the main representatives of Caravaggism.
During his apprenticeship here, Nicolas Tournier was merely employed to copy the master's compositions that were later sold in the name of Manfredi, and thus attributed to the latter right up until the 20th Century. This is the case for the The drinkers' reunion in Le Mans that reproduces a Manfredi painting housed in a London gallery as well as the The Fiasco drinker and the Drinker raising his glass in Modena. The personality of the young Tournier nonetheless comes through in the still and timeless attitudes of his figures. Hiding the artist's real identity was not unusual practice because an apprentice, or servitore, was at the entire service of his master and had no real autonomy.
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