Roland and his brother (Paul Fréart, sieur de Chantelou, or possibly Jean Fréart, sieur de Chantelou) were sent to Rome in 1639 and 1640, commissioned by their cousin François Sublet de Noyers, the superintendent of the Bâtiments du Roi, to secure the services of Poussin ("the best French artist in Rome") and to arrange for casts and copies to be made of the best antiquities in Roman collections, for the French royal palaces. Poussin arrived in Paris (with Chantelou) in December 1640. Casts of bas-reliefs sent back to Paris found use in the decor of the ceiling compartments in the Grande Galerie of the Palais du Louvre. There were also seventy casts from reliefs of sections of Trajan's Column.