The Beaux-Arts de Paris is the original of a series of Écoles des beaux-arts in French regional centers. Since its founding in 1648, the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture has had a school, France's elite institution of instruction in the arts. Its program was structured around a series of anonymous competitions that culminated in the "grand prix de l'Académie Royale", more familiar as the Grand Prix de Rome, for its winner was awarded a bourse and a place at the French Academy in Rome. During his stay in Rome, a "pensionnaire" was expected to send regular "envois" of his developing work back to Paris. Contestants for the "Prix" were assigned a theme from the literature of Classical Antiquity; their individual identities were kept secret to avoid any scandal of favoritism.