Alexandre de Latour or Delatour (22 May 1780,

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

– 5 November 1858, Brussels) was a Belgian miniaturist. He also produced a few small format oil paintings.

Life and work

He received his first lessons in his family home, from his mother, the painter

Marie de Latour Marie Élisabeth Jeanne de Latour-Simons, known as Marie de Latour (1750, Brussels - 1834, Brussels) was a Belgian painter and engraver. Biography She came from a family of artists. Her father, Jan Baptist Simons (1717-1783), was a well-known ...

née Simons, who specialized in miniatures. He also trained with the famous miniaturist,

Louis-Marie Autissier Louis-Marie Autissier ( 1772 – 1830), was a French-born portrait miniature painter in the Netherlands.Aronson & Wieseman p. 93 According to Marjorie E. Wieseman, curator of European painting, at the Cincinnati Art Museum, "Autissier's suc ...

, at his studio in Brussels, as well as in Paris with

Jean-Baptiste Jacques Augustin Jean-Baptiste Jacques Augustin (August 15, 1759 – April 13, 1832) was a French Portrait miniature, miniature painter. Biography Augustin was born in Saint-Dié-des-Vosges. His father was a master glazier. He displayed an aptitude for drawing ...

(1802). His artistic style developed through three regimes; the

French First Republic In the history of France, the First Republic (), sometimes referred to in historiography as Revolutionary France, and officially the French Republic (), was founded on 21 September 1792 during the French Revolution. The First Republic lasted un ...

Napoleonic France The First French Empire or French Empire (; ), also known as Napoleonic France, was the empire ruled by Napoleon Bonaparte, who established French hegemony over much of continental Europe at the beginning of the 19th century. It lasted from ...

, and the

United Kingdom of the Netherlands The United Kingdom of the Netherlands is the unofficial name given to the Kingdom of the Netherlands as it existed from 1815 to 1839. The United Netherlands was created in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars through the fusion of territories t ...

. It was during the latter that he came to the attention of King

William I William I may refer to: Kings * William the Conqueror (–1087), also known as William I, King of England * William I of Sicily (died 1166) * William I of Scotland (died 1214), known as William the Lion * William I of the Netherlands and Luxembour ...

, who appointed him an official miniaturist for the

House of Orange The House of Orange-Nassau (, ), also known as the House of Orange because of the prestige of the princely title of Orange, also referred to as the Fourth House of Orange in comparison with the other noble houses that held the Principality of O ...

. He held a similar position following the establishment of the

Kingdom of Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southe ...

in 1831, and was known for his ability to paint accurate portraits from memory. He was a member of the

Royal Academy of Fine Arts (Antwerp) The Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp () is an art academy located in Antwerp, Belgium. It is one of the oldest of its kind in Europe. It was founded in 1663 by David Teniers the Younger, painter to the Archduke Leopold Wilhelm and Don Juan of ...

and the in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

. He trained numerous students, including his own son, Édouard (1816-1863), who was a

genre Genre () is any style or form of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other fo ...

painter. From 1804 to 1810, he held regular exhibits at the

Paris Salon The Salon (), or rarely Paris Salon (French: ''Salon de Paris'' ), beginning in 1667 was the official art exhibition of the in Paris. Between 1748 and 1890 it was arguably the greatest annual or biennial art event in the Western world. At the ...

. He also had a major showing at the Salon in

Lille Lille (, ; ; ; ; ) is a city in the northern part of France, within French Flanders. Positioned along the Deûle river, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France Regions of France, region, the Prefectures in F ...

(1822).Exhibition sheet, Salon de Lille 1822
Base Salons of the Musée d'Orsay. His works may be seen at the

Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (, ; , ) are a group of art museums in Brussels, Belgium. They are part of the institutions of the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO) and consist of six museums: the Oldmasters Museum, the ...

in Brussels, the , and the

Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp The Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp ( Dutch: ''Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen''; KMSKA) is a museum in Antwerp, Belgium, founded in 1810, that houses a collection of paintings, sculptures and drawings from the fourteenth to t ...

, which has portraits of his parents and a self-portrait.

References

External links

More works by De Latour
@ ArtNet {{DEFAULTSORT:de Latour, Alexandre 1780 births 1858 deaths French painters Dutch painters Belgian painters Portrait miniaturists Artists from Brussels

Life and work

References

Further reading

External links