Émile Bellier de la Chavignerie (6 December 1821,

Chartres Chartres () is the prefecture of the Eure-et-Loir department in the Centre-Val de Loire region in France. It is located about southwest of Paris. At the 2019 census, there were 170,763 inhabitants in the metropolitan area of Chartres (as d ...

– 6 February 1871, Saint-Malo) was a French art historian.

Life

Émile was born into a bourgeois family in Chartres. He was the son of François Jean Baptiste Bellier de la Chavignerie, vice-president of the civil court of Chartres, and Francine Marchand. His elder brother,

Jean-Baptiste Eugène Bellier de la Chavignerie Eugène Bellier de la Chavignerie (28 January 1819, Chartres – 25 September 1888, Évreux)Jean-Jacques Amigo, « Bellier de La Chavignerie (Jean-Baptiste, Eugène) », in Nouveau Dictionnaire de biographies roussillonnaises, vol. 3 Sciences de ...

, was an

entomologist Entomology () is the scientific study of insects, a branch of zoology. In the past the term "insect" was less specific, and historically the definition of entomology would also include the study of animals in other arthropod groups, such as arach ...

. His younger brother, François-Philippe Bellier de la Chavignerie (1828–1906), was a magistrate and deputy mayor of Chartres. Émile began his career in the administration of Registration and Domains, where he worked eleven years before entering, in 1854, the

Bibliothèque impériale A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...

, where he took a very active part in the catalogue of printed matter. Having become an honorary employee in 1862, he became a sub-inspector at the official exhibitions of fine arts, of which he wrote the catalogues from 1864. His first notable writings were concerned with history and archaeology, more particularly with regard to his native province, the Pays Chartrain, and he elucidated various obscure points concerning the annals of this region. But his favourite studies focused mainly on French art and artists. He had brought to light the first nine issues of the ''General Dictionary of Artists of the French School'', the fruit of long and learned research which would have been the capital work of his life, when the Franco-Prussian War broke out in 1870. Exempted by his age from war service, he sought to devote himself elsewhere and followed the Geneva Red Cross ambulance to Brittany. Not content to heal the wounded, he did not shrink from the care to be given, most dangerously, to those afflicted with smallpox, and succumbed, in his turn, to the contagion. He had also collaborated with the ''Revue des Beaux-Arts'', the ''Archives de l'Art français'', the ''Revue Universelle des Arts'', and the ''Bulletin du Bouquiniste''. Since 1862, he was responsible for the obituaries in the ''Chronique des arts et de la curiosité''. He contributed to the ''Biographie Universelle'' of

Michaud Michaud is a surname of French origin, most often found in France, Canada and the United States. Notable people with the name include: * Alexandre Michaud de Beauretour (1771–1841), Piedmontese general who served in the Imperial Russian Army * A ...

, revising or drafting all the articles on French artists, from the article on Murals (Mirual) until the end of the book. He also wrote weekly letters under the pseudonym of "un Flâneur" (from 4 December 1862 to 1 October 1863), ''Lettres d'un Flâneur parisien'', à la ''feuille'' de

Tournai Tournai or Tournay ( ; ; nl, Doornik ; pcd, Tornai; wa, Tornè ; la, Tornacum) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Hainaut, Belgium. It lies southwest of Brussels on the river Scheldt. Tournai is part of Euromet ...

Louis Auvray Louis Auvray (; 7 April 1810, in Valenciennes27 April 1890, in Paris) was a French sculptor and art critic. He was the pupil of David d'Angers and was the brother of Félix Auvray, a painter. He continued the ''Dictionnaire Général des Artistes ...

continued to publish Émile's ''Dictionary of Artists of the French School'' posthumously. The work appeared in two volumes, in 1882 and 1885.

Bibliography

Gustave Chaix d'Est-Ange (ed.)
"Bellier de La Chavignerie"
''Dictionnaire des familles françaises anciennes ou notables à la fin du xixe siècle'', tome 3 (Paris, 1904), pp. 295–6.

External links

* John Mark Ockerbloom (ed.)
"Emile Bellier de la Chavignerie"
''The Online Books Page''. Accessed 13 January 2022. {{Authority control 1821 births 1871 deaths French art historians 19th-century French journalists Deaths from smallpox in France Writers from Chartres