Delaperche
An Artist Confronting the Turmoil of History

The Musée des Beaux-Arts in Orléans is hosting the first retrospective dedicated to Jean-Marie Delaperche, a major artist who had remained in the shadows until recently and was rediscovered in 2017 with the identification of 91 drawings—true miniature paintings worthy of the greatest artists of his time—four of which bore the signature of Jean-Marie Delaperche, born in Orléans in 1771. Thus, from February¹ to June 14, 2020, the public is invited to discover this exceptional collection—largely created in Russia, where the artist lived from 1804 to 1824—alongside some sixty works (paintings, sculptures, drawings, engravings, archival materials) from prestigious institutions such as the Palace of Versailles, the Musée de l’Armée, the Fine Arts Museums of Reims and Tours, the Ruinart Archives, and private collections, offering insight into this family’s dramatic fate.

Thérèse Laperche (1743–1814), a friend of the collector Aignan-Thomas Desfriches, first trained under Perronneau before continuing her studies in Paris with Greuze and Vigée-Lebrun. She exhibited her work in 1791 and formed a bond with Madame Danton to secure the release of her husband, who had been imprisoned for his royalist views. She fled to Reims and became the center of an artistic circle that introduced her to the Heidsiecks and the Ruinarts.
Jean-Marie Delaperche (1771–1843), an enigmatic artist who chose to build his career in the shadows and to use his brush as a tool to bear witness to his time and his innermost feelings, to teach, and to reflect on the status of the artist. He left for Russia from 1804 to 1824 and witnessed the hell of the French invasion from Moscow. He lost his children and his hopes, yet in just a few years produced the finest works of his career.
Constant Delaperche (1780–1843) trained, like his older brother Jean-Marie, in the studio of Jacques-Louis David. A polyglot and gifted in every way, he first worked for the Ruinart family before becoming the tutor and court artist for the Rohan-Chabots at La Roche-Guyon, as well as for their circle of acquaintances (the Duchess of Berry, La Rochefoucauld, and others). He created monumental sculptures for the Church of Saint-Roch in Paris, the Château de La Roche-Guyon, and the Church of Beaumesnil. Like his brother, he never signed his work and refused to become a courtier to the critics who make and break reputations.

Thanks to the heritage fund and a crowdfunding campaign, the Orléans Museum of Fine Arts was able to acquire these 91 drawings and, drawing on archival records, piece together the tumultuous lives of this painter, his brother, and their mother—a colorful family of artists originally from Orléans who went on to pursue their careers in Paris, Moscow, with the Ruinart family in Reims, and the Rohan-Chabot family in La Roche-Guyon. In particular, we discover one of the most talented artists of his time, whose drawings combine great technical skill with dramatic and allegorical power, as well as documents that prove to be of great historical significance, shedding light in particular on a royalist artist’s perspective on the crimes committed by Napoleon. The artist and his family were, in fact, witnesses to a deeply turbulent historical period, witnessing—brush in hand—the death of Louis XVI, the Russian campaign, the fall of Napoleon, and then that of the Bourbons. Thus, we discover Louis XVI’s farewell to his family, a hussar bursting into the midst of a tragic scene, and truly epic scenes drawn from Greek mythology that are not without echoes of the political context facing the artist.

From Paris to Moscow and from Orléans to Saint-Malo via Reims, this family of painters reveals the difficult life that awaits those who choose the path of the arts. Their long lives, spanning the French Revolution and the July Monarchy, unfold as thrilling adventures that take them on the roads of Germany on behalf of the Ruinart champagne house, to Moscow among the poets Venevitinov and Pushkin, and to La Roche-Guyon, where the Rohan-Chabots open the doors to new patrons. Through the Delaperches’ career, the entire history and artistic life of the^nineteenth century unfolds, as seen through the eyes of these “cursed” artists who sweep us up into the turmoil of their era.