Robert Lefèvre (painter)

Engraving from Robert Lefèvre's portrait of Napoléon in his coronation regalia , engraving in the French treatise Pausanias after the exhibition of this portrait in the Salon de Paris in 1806 at the same time as Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingress Napoleon I on his imperial throne

Portrait of Yelisaveta Alexandrovna Stroganova

Robert Jacques François Faust Lefèvre (born September 24, 1755 in Bayeux , † October 3, 1830 in Paris ) was a French portrait and history painter , mainly influenced by Jacques Louis David and classicism .

Live and act

With the consent of his parents, he broke off his apprenticeship with a procurator and went to Paris to see Jean-Baptiste Regnault . His focus was on allegorical and mythological subjects , but above all portraits interested him . In 1791 he presented his lady en velours noir in the Salon de Paris . This was the starting point for its reputation. In 1805 he portrayed the Empress Joséphine . Napoléon's bees, which he put in place of the lily, adorn its train. For this work Napoléon had a counterpart made by Louis-André-Gabriel Bouchet in 1807 . On December 6, 1807, Bonaparte donated both paintings to the city of Aachen , which today decorate the council chamber of Aachen city hall .

Lefèvre exhibited works in the Paris Salon until 1827. Dominique Vivant Denon sponsored the artist. With the portraits of Napoléon and Joséphine, of Madame Laetitia , Guérin, Antoine Charles Horace Vernet , among others, his reputation as a modern portrait artist grew. Because of his portrait of Louis XVIII. he received the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor and was appointed court painter .

Numerous other portraits and historical pictures followed.

Works (selection)

Portrait of the actress Sophie de Gevaudan, b. Thévenin Devienne (?), Signed. 1796, Oil on canvas, 96 × 74 cm (37.8 × 29.1 in). 2004 Sotheby's Paris.
Portrait of Madame Paullet, signed, oil on canvas, 99 × 79 cm (39 × 31.1 in). 2008 on auction.
Portrait of Dominique Nicolas Paullet, Oil on canvas, 99 × 79 cm (39 × 31.1 in). 2008 on auction.
Portrait of Jelisaveta Alexandrovna Stroganowa , (also Elisabeth Stroganoff Demidoff; 1779–1818), Hermitage Saint Petersburg

Individual evidence

↑ In 1932 the portraits were still in the Suermondt Museum . S. a .: Alfons Fritz : Historical information on the pictures of Napoléon and his wife Josephine in the Suermondt Museum . In: Anton Kisa (ed.): Memorandum on the occasion of the twenty-five year existence of the Suermondt Museum . AVDG, Aachen 1903, pp. 50-53.

Web links

Commons : Robert Lefèvre - album with pictures, videos and audio files

personal data
SURNAME	Lefèvre, Robert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Lefèvre, Robert Jacques François Faust (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	French portrait and history painter
DATE OF BIRTH	September 24, 1755
PLACE OF BIRTH	Bayeux
DATE OF DEATH	October 3, 1830
Place of death	Paris

[1] In 1932 the portraits were still in the Suermondt Museum . S. a .: Alfons Fritz : Historical information on the pictures of Napoléon and his wife Josephine in the Suermondt Museum . In: Anton Kisa (ed.): Memorandum on the occasion of the twenty-five year existence of the Suermondt Museum . AVDG, Aachen 1903, pp. 50-53.