Germain Lavie was the nephew of John Lavie, a Huguenot who by about 1700 had moved from France to Westminster (due to the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes), and became a naturalized British citizen. The Lavies were an important family in the Bearn region just north of the Pyrenees, and in Bordeaux. Germain Lavie was also later naturalized, and married Anne Gregg. Around 1770, Lavie commissioned Johann Zoffany to paint a conversation piece of Lavie's seven children (now in the NGA).