Achievement: Michallon, Achille Etna (Paris (75), 1796 - Paris (75), 1822) (Painter)
View of the Villa Medici
View of the Villa Medici
Production: Around 1819
Theme: Painting
Technique(s): Paper (oil paint, mounted on canvas)
Dimensions : H. 22.5 cm ; W. 29.5 cm
Inventory no.: PE.643
Photo credit(s) :
Lauginie, François
Camus, Christophe
Cartel
Until 1816, painters could only compete for the Prix de Rome in the History genre.
To maintain the excellence of the French school of classical landscape painting, in 1816 Vincent-Marie Viénot de Vaublanc, Minister of the Interior under Louis XVIII and elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts the same year, created a historical landscape competition to be held every four years. Winner in 1817, Achille-Etna Michallon was the first to win this prize and to stay at the Académie de France with the other prizewinners.
The grandson and son of a sculptor, the young artist studied with several painters, including David, who noticed his precocious talent, then with Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes and Jean-Victor Bertin, with whom he discovered classical landscape painting. The Colosseum and the Villa Medici, seat of the Académie de France, seen here from the grounds of the Villa Borghese, were among the favorite motifs of painters staying in Rome. The young artist uses a classical yet picturesque perspective, revealing Constantine's Arch of Triumph and the Villa through an archway. In contrast to the series of exercises imposed on the other laureates, in 1817 the Academy's regulations were very vague on the obligations of the sole landscape laureate, who took advantage of his stay to travel the peninsula and multiply his studies from life.
Michallon was part of the development of plein-air painting, which enabled artists to study nature on the ground before working on more ambitious compositions in the studio. The contrasts of light and the precision of the foliage demonstrate the talent of Michallon, who was considered the most promising landscape painter before his sudden death in 1822.
Provenance
Léon Cogniet Collection (1794-1880).
Bequest from Catherine-Caroline Thévenin épouse Cogniet (1813-1892) and Marie-Anne-Rosalie Thévenin (1819-1892) to the Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Orléans, 1892.
School
France
Location
Museum of Fine Arts
1st mezzanine
Room: The Prix de Rome and the trip to Italy