Paul Mathey

Paul Victor Mathey (14 November 1844 – 24 November 1929) was a French painter and engraver.

Biography

Born in Paris, the son of a restorer, Mathey learned his art at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts of Paris in painters Léon Cogniet's, Isidore Pils's and Alexis-Joseph Mazerolle's workshops. He began to exhibit at the Salon de Paris in 1868, and became a valued and recognized portrait painter. He has several times portrayed artists from his entourage in their studios.

Especially a portrait painter, Mathey did not, however, refrain from landscape, seascapes, lived scenes or decoration. In his forty-fifth year, at the time of the struggle between reproducers and originals, he had the idea of starting engraving. The Comité des Artistes français, of which he was no longer a member, contested the title of engravers to those who did not work on the work of others. They wanted to exclude them from the Salon, and at least from the rewards. Mathey opened Maxime Lalanne's ''Traité de gravure à l'eau-forte'', took the technical information he needed, fetched a sketch from his notebooks and engraved it. It was a portrait of his father, whom he had drawn about ten years earlier.

His work has been crowned several times. He was presented with a 3rd class medal at the 1876 Salon, a 2nd class medal at the 1885 Salon, and a gold medal at the Exposition Universelle (1889). Finally, he was decorated with the Legion of Honour, 29 October 1889.

Mathey died in the 7th arrondissement of Paris at age 85.

Works in public collections

* Brest, :
** ''Portrait du peintre Alfred Rubé, décorateur de l'Opéra'', oil on canvas.
** ''Portrait de Mme Paul Mathey'', oil on canvas.
** ''Portrait de Mlle Marthe Mathey au petit chien'', oil on canvas.
** ''Le Mélomane, portrait du père de l'artiste'', oil on canvas.
** ''Portrait du frère Joseph'', oil on canvas.
* Évreux, : ''Bord de mer'', drawing.
*Gray,
**''La Plage'', oil on wood, (49 x 65 cm)
**''Portrait de mademoiselle Legout-Gérard'', oil on canvas, last quarter of the 19th century, (35 x 24,5 cm).
* Le Havre, Museum of modern art André Malraux: ''Un Pré - Baie de Concarneau'', oil on canvas.
* Paris:
** : an album of about a hundred sketches.
** Musée d'Orsay:
*** ''Enfant et femme dans un intérieur'',''Woman and Child in an Interior''
/ref> oil on canvas
*** ''Fernande Mathey sur la plage'', oil on canvas
*** ''Pierre Mathey'', father of the artist, oil on canvas
* Versailles, Musée de l'Histoire de France:
** '' Félicien Rops in his workshop'', oil on canvas
** ''René de Saint-Marceaux'', oil on canvas.

Selected works

File:Ernest Ange Duez by Paul Mathey.jpg, ''Portrait of Ernest Ange Duez'' (1876), Musée des beaux-arts d'Arras.
File:Georges Clairin by Paul Mathey.jpg, ''Portrait of painter Georges Clairin'', .
File:Paul Mathey - Portrait of Pierre Mathey.jpg, ''Portrait of Pierre Mathey'' (before 1887), Paris, Musée d'Orsay.
File:Paul Mathey - Woman and Child in an Interior.jpg, ''Enfant et femme dans un intérieur'' (circa 1890), Paris, Musée d'Orsay.
File:Mathey portrait peintre Rubé.jpg, ''Portrait of the painter Auguste Alfred Rubé, decorator of the Palais Garnier'', Musée des beaux-arts de Brest.

References

External links

Dossier de Légion d'honneur du peintre Paul Mathey.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mathey, Paul
1844 births
1929 deaths
Painters from Paris
19th-century French painters
20th-century French painters
20th-century French male artists
French portrait painters
École des Beaux-Arts alumni
Chevaliers of the Légion d'honneur
19th-century French male artists