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Claude Arnulphy (1697 - 22 June 1786), also spelt Arnulphi, was a French painter, chiefly of
portrait
A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this r ...
s, based at
Aix-en-Provence in the south of France.
Early life
Arnulphy is claimed to have been born either at
Grenoble
lat, Gratianopolis
, commune status = Prefecture and commune
, image = Panorama grenoble.png
, image size =
, caption = From upper left: Panorama of the city, Grenoble’s cable cars, place Saint- ...
or at
Lyon
Lyon,, ; Occitan language, Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, third-largest city and Urban area (France), second-largest metropolitan area of F ...
s, but Aix is also a possibility. He was the son of Charles Arnulphy, a painter at
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 ...
, although originally from the
County of Nice
The County of Nice (french: Comté de Nice / Pays Niçois, it, Contea di Nizza/Paese Nizzardo, Niçard oc, Contèa de Niça/País Niçard) is a historical region of France located around the southeastern city of Nice and roughly equivalent t ...
in the
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
Duchy of Savoy, by his father's marriage to Madeleine Prongey, and he spent his childhood years in the French capital city. He first trained as a painter in his father's studio, then went to
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
to study under
Benedetto Luti
Benedetto Luti (17 November 1666 – 17 June 1724) was an Italian painter.
Early life
Luti was born in Florence on 17 November 1666.
Career
In 1691, he moved to Rome, where he was patronized by Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, an en ...
(1666–1724), becoming principally a portrait artist.
[André Alauzen, ''La Peinture en Provence'' (Marseilles: éd. Jeanne Laffitte, 1987), pp. 101-102]
Career
Arnulphy established himself in the city of Aix in about 1722, where he enjoyed a long artistic career and where many of his works survive. He was the master of
Jean-François Pierre Peyron, and
Antoine Gibelin (1739–1813), another native of Aix, also began to study art under Arnulphy.
His work has been compared with that of
Hyacinthe Rigaud
Jacint Rigau-Ros i Serra (; 18 July 1659 – 29 December 1743), known in French as Hyacinthe Rigaud (), was a Catalan-French baroque painter most famous for his portraits of Louis XIV and other members of the French nobility.
Biography
Rigaud ...
(1659–1743) and
Nicolas de Largillière
Nicolas de Largillière (; 10 October 1656 – 20 March 1746) was a French portrait painter, born in Paris.
Biography
Early life
Largillière's father, a merchant, took him to Antwerp at the age of three. As a boy, he spent nearly two years i ...
(1656–1746).
His portrait of
Thomas Mathews
Thomas Mathews (October 16762 October 1751) was a British officer of the Royal Navy, who rose to the rank of admiral.
Mathews joined the navy in 1690 and saw service on a number of ships, including during the Nine Years' War and the War of the ...
''(pictured)'' is one of four surviving portraits he painted of officers of a
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...
fleet lying off
Toulon
Toulon (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Tolon , , ) is a city on the French Riviera and a large port on the Mediterranean coast, with a major naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, and the Provence province, Toulon is th ...
between 1742 and 1744. Three of these are now in the
National Maritime Museum
The National Maritime Museum (NMM) is a maritime museum in Greenwich, London. It is part of Royal Museums Greenwich, a network of museums in the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site. Like other publicly funded national museums in the Unite ...
at
Greenwich
Greenwich ( , ,) is a town in south-east London, England, within the ceremonial county of Greater London. It is situated east-southeast of Charing Cross.
Greenwich is notable for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich ...
.
[Basil Greenhill, ''The National Maritime Museum'' (1982), p. 74]
In February 1732, Arnulphy married Marguerite Aubaye, and they had ten children, of whom seven were sons. However, only one child, according to different sources a son named Joseph or François Arnulphy (died 1825) survived childhood.
[Dimier, p. 305]
In 1765, as the result of the Will of Honoré Armand de Villars, a new drawing school was established which became known as the Aix Drawing School (''École de dessin d'Aix-en-Provence''), with the painter Charles Marcel Aune
Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was "f ...
as its first principal and Arnulphy as his deputy. In 1785, Aune resigned the headship of the school to travel to North America, and Arnulphy took over from him. However, being by then aged at least eighty-eight, he chose a successor in the shape of a much younger man, Jean-Antoine Constantin
Jean-Antoine Constantin (January 1756 - 9 January 1844) was a French painter.
Biography
Born in the vicinity of the Loubière, in Marseille, Jean-Antoine Constantin studied at the Academy of Painting in Marseille under the tutelage of Jean-Jose ...
.[
Arnulphy also held various other public offices in Aix, including those of syndic and ]treasurer
A treasurer is the person responsible for running the treasury of an organization. The significant core functions of a corporate treasurer include cash and liquidity management, risk management, and corporate finance.
Government
The treasury ...
.[ He died on 22 June 1786 and was buried the next day in the Récollets cemetery at Aix.][ Constantin duly succeeded him as master of the ''école de dessin''.][
]
Notes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Arnulphy, Claude
1697 births
1786 deaths
18th-century French painters
French male painters
Artists from Aix-en-Provence
18th-century French male artists