Théodore Chassériau (September 20, 1819 – October 8, 1856) was a Dominican-born French Romantic

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ...

noted for his

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 ...

s, historical and religious paintings, allegorical murals, and Orientalist images inspired by his travels to

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. Early in his career he painted in a Neoclassical style close to that of his teacher Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, but in his later works he was strongly influenced by the Romantic style of

Eugène Delacroix Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix ( , ; 26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school.Noon, Patrick, et al., ''Crossing the Channel: Britis ...

. He was a prolific draftsman, and made a suite of prints to illustrate

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

's ''

Othello ''Othello'' (full title: ''The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice'') is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare, probably in 1603, set in the contemporary Ottoman–Venetian War (1570–1573) fought for the control of the Island of Cyp ...

''. The portrait he painted at the age of 15 of

Prosper Marilhat Antoine-George-Prosper Marilhat, usually known as Prosper Marilhat, (26 March 1811 – 13 September 1847) was a French Orientalist painter. Many of his most successful works were based on the sketches he drew during the time he spent in Egypt i ...

, makes Théodore Chassériau the youngest painter exhibited at the

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 ...

museum.Jean-Baptiste Nouvion, ''Chassériau Correspondance oubliée'', preface by Marianne de Tolentino, Paris, Les Amis de Théodore Chassériau, 2014

Life and work

Chassériau was born in

El Limón, Samaná El Limón (in English, ''The Lemon'') is a municipal district of Santa Bárbara de Samaná, Samaná Province, Dominican Republic. It is on the north coast of the Samaná Peninsula, on the Atlantic coast. There are other two municipal districts ...

, in the Spanish colony of

Santo Domingo , total_type = Total , population_density_km2 = auto , timezone = AST (UTC −4) , area_code_type = Area codes , area_code = 809, 829, 849 , postal_code_type = Postal codes , postal_code = 10100–10699 ( Distrito Nacional) , webs ...

(now the

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares with ...

). His father Benoît Chassériau was a French adventurer who had arrived in Santo Domingo in 1802 to take an administrative position in what was until 1808 a French colony. Theodore's mother, Maria Magdalena Couret de la Blagniére, was the daughter of a

mulatto (, ) is a racial classification to refer to people of mixed African and European ancestry. Its use is considered outdated and offensive in several languages, including English and Dutch, whereas in languages such as Spanish and Portuguese ...

landowner born in

Saint-Domingue Saint-Domingue () was a French colony in the western portion of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, in the area of modern-day Haiti, from 1659 to 1804. The name derives from the Spanish main city in the island, Santo Domingo, which came to ref ...

(now

Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and s ...

). In December 1820 the family left Santo Domingo for

Paris Paris () is the capital and 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), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

, where the young Chassériau soon showed precocious drawing skill. He was accepted into the studio of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres in 1830, at the age of eleven, and became the favorite pupil of the great

classicist Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Cla ...

, who regarded him as his truest disciple. (An account that may be apocryphal has Ingres declaring "Come, gentlemen, come see, this child will be the Napoleon of painting.") Theodore chasseriau Samana

After Ingres left Paris in 1834 to become director of the French Academy in

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 ...

, Chassériau fell under the influence of

, whose brand of painterly colorism was anathema to Ingres. Chassériau's art has often been characterized as an attempt to reconcile the classicism of Ingres with the romanticism of Delacroix. He first exhibited at the

Paris Salon The Salon (french: Salon), or rarely Paris Salon (French: ''Salon de Paris'' ), beginning in 1667 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Between 1748 and 1890 it was arguably the greatest annual or biennial ar ...

in 1836, and was awarded a third-place medal in the category of

history painting History painting is a genre in painting defined by its subject matter rather than any artistic style or specific period. History paintings depict a moment in a narrative story, most often (but not exclusively) Greek and Roman mythology and Bible ...

. In 1840 Chassériau travelled to Rome and met with Ingres, whose bitterness at the direction his student's work was taking led to a decisive break. While in Italy, Chassériau made landscape sketches and studied Renaissance

fresco Fresco (plural ''frescos'' or ''frescoes'') is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plast ...

es.Rosenthal. Théodore Chassériau - Mesdemoiselles Chassériau (Louvre RF 2214) 0000787160 OG

Théodore Chassériau - Reverend Father Dominique Lacordaire - WGA4805

Among the chief works of his early maturity are ''Susanna and the Elders'' and ''

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never f ...

Anadyomene'' (both 1839), '' Diana Surprised by

Actaeon Actaeon (; grc, Ἀκταίων ''Aktaion''), in Greek mythology, son of the priestly herdsman Aristaeus and Autonoe in Boeotia, was a famous Theban hero. Like Achilles in a later generation, he was trained by the centaur Chiron. He fell to ...

'' (1840), '' Andromeda Chained to the Rock by the Nereids'' (1840), and '' The Toilette of Esther'' (1841), all of which reveal a very personal ideal in depicting the female nude. Chassériau's major religious paintings from these years, ''

Christ Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and relig ...

on the Mount of Olives'' (a subject he treated in 1840 and again in 1844) and ''The Descent from the Cross'' (1842), received mixed reviews from the critics; among the artist's champions was Théophile Gautier. In 1843, Chassériau painted murals depicting the life of Saint Mary of Egypt in the Church of Saint-Merri in Paris, the first of several commissions he received to decorate public buildings in Paris. Portraits from this period include the ''Portrait of the Reverend Father Dominique Lacordaire, of the Order of the Predicant Friars'' (1840), and '' The Two Sisters'' (1843), which depicts Chassériau's sisters Adèle and Aline. Throughout his life he was a prolific draftsman; his many portrait drawings executed with a finely pointed graphite pencil are close in style to those of Ingres. He also created a body of 29 prints, including a group of eighteen etchings of subjects from

's ''

'' in 1844. He exhibited the colossal portrait ''Ali-Ben-Hamet, Caliph of Constantine and Chief of the Haractas, Followed by his Escort'' in the Salon of 1845, where it received equivocal reviews. In 1846, Chassériau made his first trip to Algeria. From sketches made on this and subsequent trips he painted such subjects as ''Arab Chiefs Visiting Their Vassals'' and ''Jewish Women on a Balcony'' (both 1849, now in the

). A major late work, ''The Tepidarium'' (1853, in the

Musée d'Orsay The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) ( en, Orsay Museum) is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French a ...

), depicts a large group of women drying themselves after bathing, in an architectural setting inspired by the artist's trip in 1840 to

Pompeii Pompeii (, ) was an ancient city located in what is now the ''comune'' of Pompei near Naples in the Campania region of Italy. Pompeii, along with Herculaneum and many villas in the surrounding area (e.g. at Boscoreale, Stabiae), was burie ...

. His most monumental work was his decoration of the grand staircase of the

Cour des Comptes The ''Cour des Comptes'' ("Court of Accounts") is France's supreme audit institution, under French law an administrative court. As such, it is independent from the legislative and executive branches of the French Government. However, the 1946 an ...

, commissioned by the state in 1844 and completed in 1848. He followed the example of Delacroix in executing this work in oil on plaster, rather than in fresco. This work was heavily damaged in May 1871 by a fire set during the Commune, and only fragments could be recovered; these are preserved in the Louvre. After a period of ill health, exacerbated by his exhausting work on commissions for murals to decorate the Churches of Saint-Roch and Saint-Philippe-du-Roule, Chassériau died at the age of 37 in Paris, on October 8, 1856. He is buried in the Montmartre Cemetery.

Legacy

His work had a significant impact on the style of

Puvis de Chavannes Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (14 December 1824 – 24 October 1898) was a French painter known for his mural painting, who came to be known as "the painter for France". He became the co-founder and president of the Société Nationale des Bea ...

and

Gustave Moreau Gustave Moreau (; 6 April 1826 – 18 April 1898) was a French artist and an important figure in the Symbolist movement. Jean Cassou called him "the Symbolist painter par excellence".Cassou, Jean. 1979. ''The Concise Encyclopedia of Symbolism.'' ...

, and—through those artists' influence—reverberations in the work of

Paul Gauguin Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (, ; ; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French Post-Impressionist artist. Unappreciated until after his death, Gauguin is now recognized for his experimental use of colour and Synthetist style that were distinct fr ...

and

Henri Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known prim ...

.Guégan et al. 2002, p. 287. There is in Paris a Society for the painter: ''Association des Amis de Théodore Chassériau''. Works of Chassériau are in the Musée du Louvre where a room is dedicated to him, in the

, and in the Musée de

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, ...

. Collections in the United States holding works by Théodore Chassériau include the

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, the Fogg Art Museum of

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

University, the

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of ch ...

of Washington, D.C., the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Museum of the Art Rhode Island School of Design,

The J. Paul Getty Museum The J. Paul Getty Museum, commonly referred to as the Getty, is an art museum in Los Angeles, California housed on two campuses: the Getty Center and Getty Villa. The Getty Center is located in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles and fea ...

and the

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

Exhibitions

* ''Théodore Chassériau: Parfum exotique'', National Museum of Western Art of Tokyo, Japan, February 28 – May 28, 2017 * ''Théodore Chassériau: Obras sobre papel'', Galerie nationale des beaux-arts de

and Centro cultural León de Santiago de los Caballeros,

, 2004 * ''Théodore Chassériau (1819–1856): A Different Romanticism'',

(United States),

Galeries nationales du Grand Palais The galeries nationales du Grand Palais (Grand Palais National Galleries) are museum spaces located in the Grand Palais in the 8th arrondissement of Paris The 8th arrondissement of Paris (''VIIIe arrondissement'') is one of the 20 arrondissem ...

in Paris (France) and Musée des beaux-arts de

Strasbourg Strasbourg (, , ; german: Straßburg ; gsw, label= Bas Rhin Alsatian, Strossburi , gsw, label= Haut Rhin Alsatian, Strossburig ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est region of eastern France and the official seat of the ...

(France), 2002 * ''Chassériau (1819–1856): exposition au profit de la

Société des amis du Louvre The Société des amis du Louvre ("Society of Friends of the Louvre") is a voluntary association created in 1897 whose objective is to buy objects with an artistic, archeological, or historical value for the Louvre museum. History The Society ...

'', Galerie Daber, Paris, France, 1976 * ''Theodore Chassériau (1819–1856)'', Musée des beaux-arts de

Poitiers Poitiers (, , , ; Poitevin: ''Poetàe'') is a city on the River Clain in west-central France. It is a commune and the capital of the Vienne department and the historical centre of Poitou. In 2017 it had a population of 88,291. Its agglome ...

, France, 1969 * ''Théodore Chassériau'', Musée national des beaux-arts d'Alger, Algeria, 1936 * ''Restrospective Théodore Chassériau (1819–1856)'',

Musée de l'Orangerie The Musée de l'Orangerie ( en, Orangery Museum) is an art gallery of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings located in the west corner of the Tuileries Garden next to the Place de la Concorde in Paris. The museum is most famous as th ...

, Paris, France, 1933 * ''Aquarelles et dessins de Chasseriau (1819–1856)'', Galerie L. Dru, Paris, France, 1927 * ''Les Peintres orientalistes français - 4e exposition: Rétrospective Théodore Chassériau'', Galerie

Durand-Ruel Paul Durand-Ruel (31 October 1831, Paris – 5 February 1922, Paris) was a French art dealer associated with the Impressionists and the Barbizon School. Being the first to support artists such as Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, and Pierre-Auguste ...

, Paris, France, 1897

Selected works

* ''

Self-portrait A self-portrait is a representation of an artist that is drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by that artist. Although self-portraits have been made since the earliest times, it is not until the Early Renaissance in the mid-15th century tha ...

'' - Musée du Louvre * '' Aline Chassériau'' - Musée du Louvre * ''

Battle of Arab Horsemen Around a Standard ''Battle of Arab Horsemen Around a Standard'' is an oil-on-canvas painting by the French artist Théodore Chassériau, created in 1854. It is signed and dated by the painter. It was developed from sketches he made in Algeria, and it follows the ...

'' (1854) - Dallas Museum of Art * '' The Caliph of Constantine'', also known as ''Ali Ben-Hamet, Caliph of Constantine and Chief of the Haractas, Followed by his Escort'' * '' Andromeda Chained to the Rock by the Nereids'' * '' Arab Chiefs Visiting their Vassals'' * '' Christ on the Mount of Olives'' * '' The Descent from the Cross'' * '' Diana Surprised by Actaeon'' * '' Jewish Women on a Balcony'' * '' Othello and Desdemona in Venice'' * '' Portrait of the Father Dominique Lacordaire, of the Order of the Predicant Friars'' * '' Susanna and the Elders'' * '' Venus Anadyomene'' * '' The Tepidarium'' * '' The Toilette of Esther'' * '' The Two Sisters''

Gallery

File:Chassériau - Comtesse de La Tour-Maubourg (née Marie-Louise-Charlotte-Gabrielle Thomas de Pange, 1816–1850).jpg, alt= Portrait de la comtesse de La Tour Maubourg par Théodore Chassériau., ''Portrait de la comtesse de La Tour Maubourg'', 1841,

File:Théodore Chassériau - Peace - WGA4804.jpg, ''Peace, Protector of the Arts and of the Tilling of the Soil'', 1844–1848, oil on plaster transferred to canvas. A surviving fragment of the Cour des Comptes decorations. File:Othello and Desdemona in Venice by Théodore Chassériau.jpg, ''

and

Desdemona Desdemona () is a character in William Shakespeare's play ''Othello'' (c. 1601–1604). Shakespeare's Desdemona is a Venetian beauty who enrages and disappoints her father, a Venetian senator, when she elopes with Othello, a Moorish Venetian ...

in Venice'', 1850, oil on wood, 25 x 20 cm,

, Paris. Another work inspired by

File:'Scene in the Jewish Quarter of Constantine' by Théodore Chassériau, 1851.jpg, alt=Deux jeunes juives de Constantine berçant un enfant par Théodore Chassériau., ''Scene in the Jewish Quarter of Constantine'', 1851,

File:Théodore Chassériau - Orientalist Interior - Nude in a Harem - WGA04803.jpg, ''Orientalist Interior'', ca. 1851–1852, oil on wood, 49 x 39 cm File:Théodore Chassériau - Tepidarium - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Tepidarium'', 1853, oil on canvas,

File:Théodore Chassériau - Portrait of Mme Borg de Balsan.JPG, alt=''Portrait of Mme Borg de Balsan'', ''Portrait of Mme Borg de Balsan'', 1847, pencil on paper,

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin ...

File:CHASSERIAU Théodore,1844 - Portrait de Lamartine - drawing (dessin, disegno).jpg, alt=''Portrait d' Alphonse de Lamartine'', ''Portrait d' Alphonse de Lamartine'', 1844, pencil on paper File:L'Enfant & la poupée, portrait de Laure Stéphanie Pierrugues par Théodore Chassériau (1836).jpg, alt=''The Child & the doll'', ''The Child and the Doll'', portrait of Laure Stéphanie Pierrugues, 1836, oil on canvas, 79,5 x 57 cm

Notes

References

* Fisher, Jay M. (1979). ''Théodore Chassériau: Illustrations for Othello''. Baltimore: The Baltimore Museum of Art. . * Guégan, Stéphane; Pomarède, Vincent; Prat, Louis-Antoine (2002). ''Théodore Chassériau, 1819-1856: The Unknown Romantic''. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. . * Miller, Peter Benson (2004). "By the Sword and the Plow: Théodore Chassériau's Cour des Comptes Murals and Algeria," ''The Art Bulletin'' vol. 86, no. 4 (Dec. 2004), pp. 690–718. * Prat, Louis-Antoine. n.d. ''Theodore Chassériau, 1819-1856: dessins conserves en dehors du Louvre''. Paris: Galerie de Bayser 989? . * Rosenblum, Robert (1989). ''Paintings in the Musée d'Orsay''. New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang. . * Rosenthal, Donald A. "Chassériau, Théodore". ''Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online''. Oxford University Press. Web.

External links

Website of the 'Amis de Théodore Chassériau' (France)

Website_of_the_Institut_de_France
_(Académie_des_Beaux-Arts.html" ;"title="Institut de France">Website of the Institut de France
(Académie des Beaux-Arts">Institut de France">Website of the Institut de France
(Académie des Beaux-Arts) - Prix de Gravure Chassériau - Last prize was given in 2011 to Dominique Vaillier.]
Famille Chasseriau, Généalogie d'Haiti et de Saint-Domingue

Portrait de femme
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Chasseriau, Theodore 1819 births 1856 deaths 19th-century French painters French male painters French romantic painters French portrait painters Burials at Montmartre Cemetery

Theodore Theodore may refer to: Places * Theodore, Alabama, United States * Theodore, Australian Capital Territory * Theodore, Queensland, a town in the Shire of Banana, Australia * Theodore, Saskatchewan, Canada * Theodore Reservoir, a lake in Saskatche ...

Orientalist painters 19th-century painters of historical subjects Dominican Republic people of French descent Dominican Republic people of Haitian descent 19th-century French male artists