François Bonvin (November 22, 1817 – December 19, 1887) was a French
realist painter.
Early life
Bonvin was born in humble circumstances in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
, the son of a police officer and a seamstress. When he was four years old his mother died of
tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...
and young François was left in the care of an old woman who underfed him. Soon his father married another seamstress and brought the child back into the household. Nine additional children were born (one of whom was
Léon Bonvin). The family's resources were severely strained, and to make matters worse his stepmother took to abusing and undernourishing François.
The young Bonvin started drawing at an early age. His potential was recognized by a friend of the family, who paid for him to attend a school for drawing instruction at age eleven. Bonvin attended the Ecole de Dessin in Paris from 1828 until 1830,
[Oxford Art Online.] when his father apprenticed him to a
printer. Bonvin later studied at the
Académie Suisse,
but was mostly self-taught as an artist. He considered
François Granet
François () is a French masculine given name and surname, equivalent to the English name Francis.
People with the given name
* François Amoudruz (1926–2020), French resistance fighter
* François-Marie Arouet (better known as Voltaire; ...
, to whom he showed some of his drawings in 1843, his only mentor.
Bonvin spent his free time at the
Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...
where he especially appreciated the
Dutch old masters and was welcomed by the collector
Louis La Caze
Louis La Caze (6 May 1798 – 28 September 1869) was a successful French physician and collector of paintings whose bequest of 583 paintings to the Musée du Louvre was one of the largest the museum has ever received. Among the paintings, the mos ...
.
Career
Bonvin married a laundress at the age of twenty, at about the same time that he secured a job at the headquarters of the Paris police, where he worked until 1850. It was during this period that he contracted an illness which would trouble him for the rest of his life.
Bonvin exhibited three paintings in the
Salon of 1849, where he was awarded a third-class medal. He exhibited in the
Salon of 1850 with
Courbet, and won recognition as a leading realist, painting truthfully the lives of the poor which he knew at first hand. His paintings were well received by critics and by the public. Although his work had elements in common with Courbet's, his modestly scaled paintings were not seen as revolutionary. He was awarded the
Légion d'honneur
The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and Civil society, civil. Currently consisting of five cl ...
in 1870.
His subjects were still life and the everyday activities of common people, painted in a style that is reminiscent of
Pieter de Hooch
Pieter Hendricksz. de Hooch (; also spelled ''Hoogh'' or ''Hooghe''; 20 December 1629 – after 1683), was a Dutch Golden Age painter famous for his genre works of quiet domestic scenes with an open doorway. He was a contemporary, in the ...
and
Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin. It is the latter who is especially recalled by Bonvin's delicate luminosity.
In 1881 he underwent an operation which did not restore him to health, and he became blind. A retrospective exhibition of his work was held in 1886. He died at
Saint-Germain-en-Laye
Saint-Germain-en-Laye () is a Communes of France, commune in the Yvelines Departments of France, department in the Île-de-France in north-central France. It is located in the western suburbs of Paris, from the Kilometre Zero, centre of Paris. ...
in 1887.
In 1978 Editions Geoffroy-Dechaume published ''Les Maitres du XIX Siecle: Bonvin'', Professor Gabriel Weisberg's critical analysis on the life and work of the artist.
Gallery
File:François Bonvin - Still Life - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Still Life'', 1858
File:François Bonvin - L'écolier.jpg, ''L'écolier'', 1874
Image:FrancoisBonvinPainting1.jpg, ''Still Life with Asparagus'', 1862
File:François Bonvin-La tailleuse de soupe.jpg, ''La tailleuse de soupe'', c. 1886, Musée des beaux-arts de Mulhouse
File:La charite francois bonvin.jpeg, ''Charity'', 1851
Bibliography
*
Gabriel P. Weisberg : ''The Paintings of François Bonvin in the Wadsworth Atheneum'', Wadsworth Atheneum, 1970.
References
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bonvin, Francois
1817 births
1887 deaths
19th-century French painters
French male painters
French Realist painters
Sibling artists
19th-century French male artists