Alfred Guillard

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Alfred Guillard, Queen Matilda working on the Bayeux Tapestry , 1848, Baron Gérard Museum (Bayeux)

Alfred Guillard (born February 17, 1810 in Caen , † November 16, 1880 ibid) was a French painter and museum director.

biography

Perugino , Marriage of the Virgin
Rogier van der Weyden , Madonna and Child

Alfred Guillard was born in 1810 as the son of the caretaker of the Caen Music School. He was a student of Antoine-Jean Gros and exhibited at the Paris Salon from 1842 to 1850 . In 1848 he presented The Testament of William the Conqueror and in 1849 Queen Matilde worked on the Bayeux Tapestry . In 1841 he became director of the drawing courses at the municipal school for fine arts in Caen, today the École supérieure d'arts et médias de Caen-Cherbourg .

Alfred Guillard succeeded the painter and caricaturist of Caen Henri Elouis (1755-1840) at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen as museum director (French conservateur du musée ) in 1841 . As director of the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen, he bought hundreds of paintings on various occasions from 1841 to 1880, including three by François Boucher , twenty by Théodore Gudin and one by Pierre Mignard , many of which were of mediocre quality.

In 1872 he received the most important donation for his museum. The bookseller of Caen Bernard Mancel donated works from the famous collections of Cardinale Fesch , uncle of Napoleon Bonaparte , which he had acquired in Rome in 1845. There were around 50,000 works of art, including engravings by Dürer , Rembrandt and Callot, and about thirty paintings in addition, including the Marriage of the Virgin of Perugino , the Temptation of Saint Antonio by Veronese and a Madonna and Child on wood by Rogier van der Weyden , which Is part of a diptych with a portrait. The former presence of the wedding of the Virgin of Perugino in Perugia is documented: from there the canvas was given to Napoleon Bonaparte, who gave it to his uncle, Cardinal Fesch. Italy has claimed ownership in vain.

In 1873, the family of Colonel and painter Jérôme-Martin Langlois, who received the Prix ​​de Rome in 1809 , donated a collection of 256 battle paintings to the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen . In 1888, most of these paintings were removed from the museum and made available to the new Musée Langlois, the Pavillon des Sociétés Savantes .

plant

Alfred Guillard's painting is influenced by French floral Gothic, but also by Perugino's harmonious composition . In the time of Pre-Raphaelism , artists had occupied themselves with his pictorial representations. It is likely that his works, especially if kept in private collections, were lost in the last war due to the devastating bombing that devastated Caen, the reconstruction of which took until 1962. Edgar Degas owned two paintings by Guillard.

In a private collection there is a sketch, oil on canvas with a gold background, signed Alfred Guillard on the reverse and the depiction of the Enthroned Virgin, between the kneeling Archangels Michael and Gabriel. Because of the shape of the painted surface, it could be a sketch for a fresco.

Remarks

  1. ↑ The first painting is in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen and the second painting was bought by the city of Bayeux .
  2. ↑ He painted the portrait of Henri Elouis, now in the collection of the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen .

literature

Web links

Commons : Alfred Guillard  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Chapter Administration Guillard (1841–1880) . In: Fernand Angerand: Histoire du Musée de Caen. In: Bulletin de la Société des beaux-arts de Caen. Valine, Caen 1897, Volume 10, pp. 121-136. ( Digitized version , accessed on March 17, 2017, in French).
personal data
SURNAME Guillard, Alfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French painter
DATE OF BIRTH February 17, 1810
PLACE OF BIRTH Caen
DATE OF DEATH November 16, 1880
Place of death Caen