Jacques Amans

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Self-portrait by Jacques Amans (1845)

Jacques Guillaume Lucien Amans (* 1801 in Maastricht ; † January 10, 1888 in Paris ) was a French painter who lived in Louisiana for twenty years . He was one of the most important portrait painters in the city of New Orleans in the mid-19th century.

Life

Jacques Amans was born in Maastricht in 1801 as the son of the officer Paul-Serge Amans and his wife Thésèse Visschers. He had four sisters. Presumably he attended the École des Beaux-Arts before exhibiting his pictures in the Salon de Paris from 1831 to 1837 .

Together with the painter Jean Joseph Vaudechamp (1790–1866) Amans came to New Orleans for the first time in 1836. His first known portrait of a person from Louisiana was also dated this year, and at the same time he acquired the Trinity sugar plantation on the Bayou Lafourche River . In the following year, the two painters again took the same ship to New Orleans, where they had studios on Royal Street. Amans spent the winter months there and painted numerous portraits of prominent citizens. In the summer he left the city to avoid yellow fever and traveled to Paris or to his plantation.

Despite competition from a number of other portrait painters, Amans quickly found success and a good income from selling his paintings. They were very popular, especially among plantation owners who emigrated from France along the Mississippi . Amans had no official students or successors, but he supported the New Orleans painter George David Coulon (1822-1904) in his studies around 1840 .

When former US President Andrew Jackson came to the city in 1840 on the 25th anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans , Amans wrote a letter asking him to model him. He wants to present the finished portrait to the residents of New Orleans. That letter is in Jackson's estate in the Library of Congress today . Jackson agreed, and in the following years Amans created several portraits of him, probably based on this first work. He and the painter Theodore Sidney Moise (1808–1885) won the New Orleans City Council Prize, endowed with 1,000 dollars , in 1844 for their jointly created equestrian portrait General Andrew Jackson . On the occasion of the election of Zachary Taylor Amans traveled to Baton Rouge in 1848 , where he was able to assert himself against other artists and portray the new president.

Amans married Marguerite Azoline Landreaux in 1844, the daughter of a sugar plantation owner in St. Charles Parish . At that time he bought land in Bay St. Louis, which he sold again in 1852. In 1856 Amans and his wife left Louisiana for good and moved to his estate "Lacour Levy" near Versailles . After that, Amans no longer worked as a painter as far as is known. In 1878 his wife died. At that time he was in Paris, where he died ten years later.

plant

Portrait of Andrew Jackson (Amans 1840)

Only his portraits are known of Amans' work. He is considered the most important portrait painter in the city of New Orleans in the 1840s and early 1850s. A total of over 75 works are assigned to him, around a third of which are signed. Amans portrayed Andrew Jackson (1840 and 1844) and Zachary Taylor (1848), but mostly local celebrities from New Orleans, plantation owners and their families. He preferred three-quarter portraits of seated models. The influence of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres is evident in his painting style . He was a proponent of classicism , as taught by the École des Beaux-Arts, but in a warmer, less direct style. In line with the tastes of wealthy clients, his portraits were elegant and, especially in the case of the portraits of women, very flattering.

His works were exhibited in Paris salons from 1831 to 1837 and at the American Exposition in New Orleans from 1885 to 1886. A part is now owned by various museums such as the Louisiana State Museum , the Brooklyn Museum , the New Orleans Museum of Art , the Ogden Museum of Southern Art and the Historic New Orleans Collection.

Works (selection)
  • Portrait of Josephine Roman Aime , 1838, oil on canvas, Historic New Orleans Collection
  • Madame Françoise Gabrielle "Rosa" Montegut Pitot , around 1838, oil on canvas, Historic New Orleans Collection
  • Madame Felix Formento (née Palmyre Henrietta Lauve), and George Edouard Francois Felix Formento, Jr. (Dr. Felix Formento) , around 1838, oil on canvas, 41 × 32 ", signed" Amans ", Louisiana State Museum
  • Portrait of Frantois Gabriel (Valcour) Aime , 1938, oil on canvas, Historic New Orleans Collection
  • Clara Mazureau , 1838, oil on canvas, 36 1/2 × 29 "," Amans 1838 "
  • Rosalie Jonas , 1839, watercolor on ivory, 33 3/4 × 29 ", Louisiana State Museum
  • Portrait of Andrew Jackson , August 1, 1840, oil on canvas, 60 1/2 × 49 1/2 ", Historic New Orleans Collection
  • Creole in a Red Turban , around 1840, oil on canvas, Historic New Orleans Collection
  • Reverend Mother Sainte Seraphine , c. 1840, oil on canvas, 22 × 18 ", Louisiana State Museum (attributed to)
  • Mrs. Gustave Miltenberger (née Corinne Knott) , around 1840, oil on canvas, 30 × 25 ", signed" Amans ", Louisiana State Museum
  • François Petitpain , c. 1840, oil on canvas, 36 1/2 × 29 3/8, Louisiana State Museum (attributed to)
  • Sophronia Louise Claiborne de Marigny de Mandeville , c. 1840, oil on canvas, 41 1/2 × 33 1/2 ", Louisiana State Museum (attributed to)
  • Mrs. Ambroise Brou (née Seraphine Becnel) , c. 1840-1845, oil on canvas, 41 1/4 × 33 1/2 ", Louisiana State Museum (attributed to)
  • Judge Charles A. de Maurian , 1841, oil on canvas, 36 1/4 × 19 1/8 ", signed" Amans 1841 ", Louisiana State Museum
  • Andrea Mallard (Mrs. Prudent Mallard) , 1841, oil on canvas, 36 × 29 ", signed" Amans 1841 ", Louisiana State Museum
  • Margaret , portrait of Margaret Haughery with two orphans, around 1842, oil on canvas, 115 × 91 cm, Ogden Museum of Southern Art
  • Portrait of a Lady , 1840s, oil on canvas, Historic New Orleans Collection
  • General Andrew Jackson equestrian portrait , 1844, with Theodore Sidney Moise
  • Jacques Guillaume Lucien Amans (Self-Portrait), 1845, oil on canvas, Historic New Orleans Collection
  • Portrait of an Unknown Man , 1845, oil on canvas, 95.2 × 76 cm, Brooklyn Museum
  • Portrait of William Farrar Kenner , c. 1850, oil on canvas, 30 1/2 × 25 ", Historic New Orleans Collection
  • Hilary Breton Cenas , c. 1850, oil on canvas, 27 × 22 ", Louisiana State Museum (attributed to)
  • Florient Fortier , about 1850, oil on canvas, Louisiana State Museum
  • Carl Kohn , oil on canvas, 36 1/4 × 28 1/2 ", Historic New Orleans Collection

literature

Web links

Commons : s  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Richard Anthony Lewis: Jacques Amans. ( Memento of the original from September 18, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: David Johnson (Ed.): KnowLA Encyclopedia of Louisiana. Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, January 11, 2011. Retrieved August 14, 2015. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.knowla.org
  2. ^ Rudolf Thiele: Amans, Jacques . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples (AKL). Volume 3, Seemann, Leipzig 1990, ISBN 3-363-00116-9 , p. 81.
  3. ^ A b John A. Mahe, Rosanne McCaffrey: Encyclopaedia of New Orleans Artists 1718-1918. 1987, p. 6.
  4. ^ Pictures by Jacques Amans in the Louisiana Digital Library louisdl.louislibraries.org. Retrieved August 14, 2015.
  5. ↑ Portrait of an Unknown Man . brooklynmuseum.org. Retrieved August 14, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Amans, Jacques
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Amans, Jacques Guillaume Lucien (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French painter in New Orleans
DATE OF BIRTH 1801
PLACE OF BIRTH Maastricht
DATE OF DEATH January 10, 1888
Place of death Paris