Alexandre-François Desportes (24 February 1661 — 20 April 1743) was a French painter and decorative designer who specialised in animals.
Desportes was born in
Champigneulle,
Ardennes. He studied in Paris, in the studio of the Flemish painter
Nicasius Bernaerts
Nicasius Bernaerts, Monsù Nicasio or simply Nicasius(1620, Antwerp – 1678, Paris) was a Southern Netherlands, Flemish Animalier, painter of animals, hunting pieces and flowers who had an international career in Italy and Paris. He worked for ...
, a pupil of
Frans Snyders
Frans Snyders or Frans Snijders (11 November 1579, Antwerp – 19 August 1657, Antwerp) was a Flemish painter of animals, hunting scenes, market scenes and still lifes. He was one of the earliest specialist animaliers and he is credited with ...
. During a brief sojourn in
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
, 1695–96, he painted portraits of
John III Sobieski and Polish aristocrats; after the king's death Desportes returned to Paris, convinced that he should specialise in animals and flowers. He was received by the
Académie de peinture et de sculpture
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...
in 1699, with the ''Self-Portrait in Hunting Dress'' now in the
Musée du Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
. In 1712–13 he spent six months in England. He received many commissions for decorative panels for the royal
château
A château (; plural: châteaux) is a manor house or residence of the lord of the manor, or a fine country house of nobility or gentry, with or without fortifications, originally, and still most frequently, in French-speaking regions.
Now ...
x:
Versailles
The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, ...
,
Marly,
Meudon
Meudon () is a municipality in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is in the département of Hauts-de-Seine. It is located from the center of Paris. The city is known for many historic monuments and some extraordinary trees. One of t ...
,
Compiègne
Compiègne (; pcd, Compiène) is a commune in the Oise department in northern France. It is located on the river Oise. Its inhabitants are called ''Compiégnois''.
Administration
Compiègne is the seat of two cantons:
* Compiègne-1 (with 19 ...
and, his last royal commission, for Louis XV at
Choisy, 1742. He also did decorative paintings for the duc de Bourbon at
Chantilly
Chantilly may refer to:
Places
France
*Chantilly, Oise, a city located in the Oise department
**US Chantilly, a football club
*Château de Chantilly, a historic château located in the town of Chantilly
United States
* Chantilly, Missou ...
. Both
Louis XIV
, house = Bourbon
, father = Louis XIII
, mother = Anne of Austria
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France
, death_date =
, death_place = Palace of Ver ...
and
Louis XV
Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reached ...
commissioned portraits of their favorite hunting dogs.
Desportes would follow the royal hunt
[ Saint-Simon recorded ""] with a small notebook he carried to make on-site sketches for still lives of the game that resulted from the day's hunt, for the king to make a choice of which were to be worked up into finished paintings. In several paintings he combined game with a ''buffet'' of spectacular pieces of silver as they might be displayed in a dining room; these are precious documents of the lost silver of the reign of Louis XIV.
His details of trophies of game or animals were used in cartoons for
tapestry
Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven by hand on a loom. Tapestry is weft-faced weaving, in which all the warp threads are hidden in the completed work, unlike most woven textiles, where both the warp and the weft threads ma ...
in which work of several painters was combined, woven at the
Savonnerie
The Savonnerie manufactory was the most prestigious European manufactory of knotted-pile carpets, enjoying its greatest period c. 1650–1685; the cachet of its name is casually applied to many knotted-pile carpets made at other centers. The manuf ...
and at the
Gobelins (''Portière de Diane'', Louvre). For the Gobelins he designed the series of tapestries called ''Les Nouvelles Indes'' (8 of them, woven in the Manufacture Les Gobelins in Paris, have been saved in Archbishop's palace in
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...
).
At his death, in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
, he left a considerable amount of work in his studio (where his nephew
Nicolas had trained), which included studies of animals and plants as well as some fox-hunting sketches by
Jan Fyt
Jan Fijt or Johannes Fijt (or Fyt) (19 August 1609 – 11 September 1661) was a Flemish Baroque painter, draughtsman and etcher. One of the leading animaliers of the 17th century, he was known for his refined depictions of animals and his lush h ...
. In 1784, the
comte d'Angiviller, general director of the
Bâtiments du Roi
The Bâtiments du Roi (, "King's Buildings") was a division of the Maison du Roi ("King's Household") in France under the Ancien Régime. It was responsible for building works at the King's residences in and around Paris.
History
The Bâtiments ...
acquired these resources for painter's models at the manufactory of
Sèvres porcelain, so that Desportes' influence in the iconography of French arts extended almost throughout the century.
See also
*
Animalier
An animalier (, ) is an artist, mainly from the 19th century, who specializes in, or is known for, skill in the realistic portrayal of animals. "Animal painter" is the more general term for earlier artists. Although the work may be in any genre ...
*
Still Life with a Peacock
Notes
References
''This article is partly based on a translation from French Wikipedia.''
Alexandre-François Desportes on-lineGetty Museum: Tapestry screens after cartoons by Desportes''Still Life with Silver'' Metropolitan Museum
{{DEFAULTSORT:Desportes, Alexandre-Francois
17th-century French painters
French male painters
18th-century French painters
1661 births
1743 deaths
People from Ardennes (department)
French tapestry artists
18th-century French male artists