The Painters Archives - Page 8 sur 9

Charles Bertrand d’Entraygues-E

Brive, July 14th 1850 – February 11th 1929, Biot

Charles Bertrand d’Entraygues was born in Brive (Corrèze County), in the heart of peasant France, whose atmosphere and décor would be decisive in the evolution of his artistic career. All his work will be centered, indeed, on the representation of modest interiors, family scenes and children’s games.
Altar boys, in particular, inspired him to paint many pictures in which gaiety and mischievousness are in dispute.
He acquired the first bases of his training at the Beaux-Arts of Toulouse before entering the workshop of Isidore Pils, in Paris. Pils was one of the artists who illustrated the horrors of the bloody siege of Paris and the destruction caused by the war. When he arrived, the city was still shaken by the Franco-German conflict.
After the death of Pils, d’Entraygues moved to Ecouen, where he lived for more than twenty years, for a time at 29, rue d’Ezanville, before moving to 5, rue de l’Union (now rue Aristide-Briand). He joined the painters’ colony (it is not known whether this was the reason for his choice of Ecouen). At the same time, he married Caroline Monnet, born in Villiers-le-Bel, next to Ecouen, around 1853, and had four children.
From the 1880’s, his reputation was based on his numerous representations of children, full of charm, humor and lightness. Like many of his colleagues, he also courted American collectors who represented a lucrative outlet for French genre painters.
There is one subject he is particularly fond of and which he treats many times with great happiness, that of altar boys.
In 1906, he left Ecouen to settle in Vernon, in Normandy, for a while and then moved to Biot, Alpes-Maritimes, where he died.

For further information, please read the book “L’Ecole d’Ecouen, une colonie de peintres au XIXe siècle” (bilingual French-English).

Théophile Emmanuel Duverger-E

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Bordeaux, September 17th 1821 – August 25th 1898, Ecouen

His birth in a large city like Bordeaux could have facilitated his access to artistic training, yet Théophile Emmanuel Duverger was self-taught. He obtained his training first by a thorough and attentive observation of nature, then by studying the works of the great masters in museums and galleries, their technique, their colors, their play of light.
This personal apprenticeship had the advantage of allowing his art and his inspiration to evolve freely, outside the constraints that are generally attached to the workshops, especially in Paris, and perhaps this is one of the particularities that shines through in the paintings of Théodore Emmanuel Duverger.
He arrived in Ecouen in 1860 with his wife, Elisabeth Seignac, also born in Bordeaux on December 7, 1814. The discovery of this small village not far from Paris will bring him to enrich his experience with nature. In any case, it allowed him to meet the Colonie des peintres d’Ecouen, born under the impulse of Pierre Edouard Frère, and which he joined immediately.
During the Second Empire in particular, genre painting was able to seduce a bourgeois clientele, tired of historical or mythological painting, which ensured comfortable incomes for the artists, those of the Ecouen School, among others. The United States also presented an outlet that the painters of Ecouen worked hard to develop.
In addition to painting, Duverger, like his friends Paul Seignac and Andre Dargelas, produced numerous drawings which pleased an American, William Walters of Baltimore. In 1861, he came to Ecouen several times and was seen walking through the streets of the village in the company of Duverger before meeting up with other artists of the Colony to discuss commissions.

In 1860, Emmanuel Duverger and his wife, Elisabeth Seignac, bought a house in Ecouen overlooking the rue de la Beauvette and the place de la Beauvette (place Jean Le-Vacher), for the sum of 20,000 francs. Then on October 18, 1869, they bought, at 22 rue de la Beauvette, a vast residence of ten rooms, embellished with a garden with numerous paths and terraces full of flowers and equipped with all the comforts (of the time…) for 11 000 F.
Duverger’s last painting, « Going to the fields« , was exhibited in 1895. He died three years later and was buried in the local cemetery.
In 1906, a painting by Emmanuel Duverger, « La bénédiction du pain« , was offered to the City of Ecouen which exhibited it in the council room. Following this donation, the street of La Châtaigneraie became rue Emmanuel Duverger. In 2010, the commune of Ecouen acquires a work of this painter: « the Dog trainer« , which shows a view of the castle and the Manoir des Tourelles.

For further information, please read the book “L’Ecole d’Ecouen, une colonie de peintres au XIXe siècle” (bilingual French-English).

André Henri Dargelas-E

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Painters Listing

Bordeaux, October 11th 1828 – June 18th 1906, Ecouen

Several names of painters of the Ecouen School remain unknown, however Dargelas was indeed part of the circle. He was a student of François Edouard Picot at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, where he entered on April 6, 1854.
In the early 1850’s, the famous English art critic John Ruskin wrote an enthusiastic article about his sentimental visions of childhood and thus increased the demand for Dargelas’ work in England. Dargelas exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1857 for the first time and continued thereafter.
The theme of childhood innocence is the main subject of his paintings. He is loved for his humorous, mischievous and tender observation. The spirit of the time is particularly sensitive to the simple virtues of domestic life. His work is widely admired and can be found in many English and American collections.
He was the son of Jean Baptiste Dargelas and Jeanne Virginie Mimandre. On February 2, 1866, he signed a marriage contract before a notary and on February 10, he married Catherine Etienne Gabrielle Duverger, born in Bordeaux on January 9, 1846. He thus became the son-in-law of the painter Théophile Emmanuel Duverger. That same year, he left Sarcelles to settle in Ecouen, at 9, rue de la Beauvette (place Le-Vacher), where their three daughters were born.of their marriage remains a particular testimony, a song composed by a friend, Mr. Chéreau, on the air undoubtedly very known at the time of « J’ai vu le parnasse des dames« .
The war of 1870 made him leave Ecouen. He took refuge in Bordeaux with his family (including his father-in-law, the painter Théophile Emmanuel Duverger). They both applied for a passport to go to Spain and England. They returned to Ecouen after the departure of the Prussian troops.
At the beginning of the rue Jacques-Yvon, the painter’s house, with its double stoop, is covered with a large glass roof still visible today on the façade.

For further information, please read the book “L’Ecole d’Ecouen, une colonie de peintres au XIXe siècle” (bilingual French-English).

Léon Marie Constant Dansaert-E

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Painters Listing

Bruxelles, October 2nd 1830 – August 30th 1909, Ecouen

In 1861 or 1862, Léon Marie Constant DANSAERT settled in Ecouen, coming from Belgium, and became a naturalized French citizen under the name Dansart but he always signed and wrote Dansaert with an E.
He exhibited in Brussels and Paris in 1863 and was invited there until 1889. His paintings, in a realistic style, offer historical scenes and then he evolves by treating more intimist scenes. This was undoubtedly due to the influence of his master, Pierre Edouard Frère and his friends. This tendency is very much felt in his painting representing this interior of a workshop where a locksmith works, visible in the town hall of Ecouen. He also worked in Italy and Germany, where he traveled for some time. He exhibited at the Antwerp Salon (1864) and at the Paris Universal Exhibition (1867). From 1868 to 1889, he presented paintings of the familiar life of the 17th century, where he became immersed in the painting of that period. He also painted scenes of the Revolution. In 1880, he participated in the Belgian Art Exhibition in Brussels.
Although often praised, appreciated for his « softness » or his « finesse of brush acquired at the school of Mr. Edouard Frère », the critics do not spare him. « The Petit journal » praised his style « lively, animated, brilliant and with a spiritual touch for his paintings Sale at the auction and the Pigmen, in 1868″. But he was sometimes criticized for « lack of authority » in his design, so not all critics gave the same judgment on his paintings. He was named knight of the order of Saint Maurice and Lazarus in 1861 (honorary order that helps the needy and the sick). During the council meeting of March 26, 1871, he proposed to approach the Bread Committee in Brussels to obtain aid for the wounded and victims of the war.
He took over as mayor of the City of Ecouen between 1879 and 1895. With the rank of lieutenant, he led the firemen to fight against the disasters in the village, and was part of the firemen’s recruitment commission in 1878. He was awarded several medals as a rescuer. Moreover, he regularly participated in the Antiquities Commission of Seine-et-Oise County from 1883 to 1908.
On July 11 and 12, 1863, Noël Philippe Gaché and Victorine Marguerite Cloux sold to Léon Marie Constant Dansaert, a painter, and Henriette Tassain, his wife, a house located at 18 rue d’Ezanville, comprising, on the ground floor, two rooms and an attic above, a small woodshed, a garden with a small alley on one side, in exchange for 1500 F, paid cash.
Married to Henriette Joséphine Agathe Louise Tassain, three of their children were born in Ecouen and had as witnesses: Philippe François Sauvage, a painter living in Villiers-le-Bel, and Arnoux Auguste Michel, a painter living in Ecouen.

The inventory drawn up on October 30, 1876, after the death of his wife, leaves him with five living minor children to support. In his house, rue d’Ezanville, the artistic works are estimated at 1750 F, they are: a marine of Vernier, 50F; a landscape of Léonide Bourges, 100 F; a landscape of Desmarquais, 100 F; and four unfinished paintings: « Le jeu de boules« , « l’Etape« , « la Conservation« , and « Variable« , 1500 F. His name is evoked in the words of a character in Elizabeth Champney’s novel: « Do I not pose? What would become of the artists, that’s what I’d like to know, if we don’t do it? There’s Monsieur Dansaert, I’ve posed for every one of his drunken characters. I wear this old dented silk hat for that purpose. I sweep his studio, clean his brushes and all he has to do is spread his paint on the canvas. I think he owes most of his success to me and I’m glad I helped him… »
For the anecdote, we can point out that several private individuals granted him loans, in particular on December 30, 1877, 2 000 F of Marie Catherine Lacourte, of Presles and on May 12, 1891, it is 5 000 F of another lender.
Towards the end of his life, Léon Dansaert donated one of his works, « the Locksmith in his workshop« , to the City of Ecouen. The council was unanimous in its acceptance.

For further information, please read the book “L’Ecole d’Ecouen, une colonie de peintres au XIXe siècle” (bilingual French-English).

Luigi Chialiva-E

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Painters Listing

Suisse, Caslano, July 16th 1841 – April 1914, Paris

Born in Lugano, Switzerland, in the Italian-speaking part of the country, Luigi Chialiva is the son of Abbondio Chialiva and Maria Medina. His family, quite wealthy, was very involved in political life and was forced to go into exile in Mexico before returning to Italy. From 1842 to 1865, he lived in the Villa Tanzina in Lugano, where he met influential politicians such as Mazzini and Cattaneo.
At a very young age, he became a student of Gottried Semper, a political refugee in Switzerland. Between 1859 and 1861 he attended the Polytechnic Institute of Zurich and the studio of the landscape painter Antonio Fontanesi from 1861 to 1863 in Milan. During this stay, he met Richard Wagner who made a strong impression on him and whom he admired. This taste for architecture led him, a few years later, to join the Sézille house project, a house that still exists on rue du Maréchal-Leclerc in Ecouen, to ensure its decoration.
Although he was an architect in 1861, he gave up this profession in 1864 and became passionate about painting. He attended the classes of Carlo Mancini in 1863 and 1864 (although there is no record of his enrolment, no doubt because of the private nature of this teaching) and those of the Academy of Brera in 1864, where he exhibited that year. He participated in exhibitions in Milan and Turin. He presented his first painting, « The Herb Market« , in Castello Square in Milan, followed by fifteen others between 1865 and 1870. After having started as a landscape painter, he turned to animal painting.
In 1867, he enrolled at the Royal Academy of Milan to study the nude, a course that was to be very useful to him. It was also in 1867 that he discovered France, when he went to visit the Universal Exhibition in Paris with Ferdinand Heilbuth, an already renowned painter he had met in Rome in 1865. He would be one of his teachers from 1874 and also one of his executors.
Very gifted for painting, he obtained in 1868 the first prize of the Mylius foundation, where he exhibited a painting representing his farmyard. The death of his father, at the end of 1870, accelerated his desire to leave for France. It is known that he visited the exhibition in Turin with his friend Ferdinand Heilbuth. His arrival in Paris was around 1872. He became a friend of Edgar Degas, of Italian origin through his grandfather, with whom he had made friends in Rome. He was influenced by his painting and, as a proof of his know-how, he restored two accidentally damaged paintings « Interior » and « The Rape« .
Among his friends, he frequented a circle of Italian artists called Circula della polenta, which included, among others, Guiseppe De Nittis, who was sometimes joined by Emile Zola and the Goncourt brothers. It also rubs shoulders with Guiseppe Verdi.

For further information, please read the book “L’Ecole d’Ecouen, une colonie de peintres au XIXe siècle” (bilingual French-English).

Chialiva in his workshop & Ecouen street

Naked sewing lady with clogs (preparatory work)

Pancrace Bessa-E

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Painters Listing

Paris, January 1st 1772 – June 11th 1846, Ecouen

Pancrace Bessa was not part of the Colony but showed the way to Ecouen to the artists involved. He was the precursor.
Pancrace Bessa was the son of Nicolas François Bessa, controller at the general farm. He studied in Montaigu and worked as an employee in his father’s office.
Still a teenager when the Revolution broke out, his aptitudes for gymnastics and fencing encouraged him to join the National Guard and this is how he witnessed the storming of the Bastille. On August 10, 1792, he participated with the National Guard in the defense of the Tuileries and the massacres he witnessed led him to give up his position and join the army.
He was part of the Dutch campaign under the command of Charles Pichegru. It was there that his vocation was born; he discovered the beauty of flowers and became interested in the representation of nature through painting. He studied botany and zoology and became a student of Gérard van Spaendonck (1746-1822), then of Pierre Joseph Redouté (1759-1840), with whom he later collaborated.
Already known for his pictorial works, he accompanied Napoleon Bonaparte with Dominique Vivant Denon (1747-1825) in his campaign in Egypt between 1798 and 1801. He brought back many specimens of shells, crustaceans, etc. which give matter to superb plates in Description de l’Egypte: histoire naturelle.

Pour plus d’informations, nous vous invitons à lire le livre « L’Ecole d’Ecouen – une colonie de peintres au XIXe siècle »