Ary Scheffer was the son of Johan Bernard Scheffer (1765-1809),
a portrait painter who became court painter to Louis Bonaparte
in Amsterdam in 1808 but died in 1809. After his father's death
he was taken to Paris by his mother Cornelia Lamme (1769-1839),
a daughter of the landscape painter Arie Lamme and a miniature
painter herself. In Paris he studied under Pierre-Narcisse Guérin
and worked in his studio. In 1812 he started exhibiting the
the Salon in Paris.
His reputation had grown by 1817
and in 1819 he was asked to portray Gilbert, Marquis de Lafayette.
He was an active Philhellene. In 1822 he became the drawing
teacher of the children of Louis Philippe I, Duke of Orléans.
When the regime of Charles X was overthrown he and Adolphe Thiers
rode from Paris to Orléans to ask Louis Philippe to lead the
resitance and Louis Philippe became the new king of France a
few days later.
Scheffer didn't like the great romantic
painters of his day (like Delacroix and Géricault) and soon
developed a style of his own. He depicted the works of Goethe
and Byron and then turned to religious subjects. After 1846
he ceased to exhibit his works, but in his studio he continued
to work.
He received the Légion d'honneur in 1848 and
in 1850 he married the widow of General Baudrand (born Françoise
Louise Sophie Lauzun-Marin, 1805-1856). In the same year he
became a French citizen. He suffered from heart problems and
died in 1858 at his summer house in Argenteuil, two years after
the death of his wife. After Scheffer's death many unknown works
were found in his studio and exhibited posthumously at Argentueil.
Among them were "Sorrows of the Earth" and the nfinished "Angel
Announcing the Resurrection". This damaged his reputation that
detoriated further after the sale of the Paturle Gallery that
had held many of his best works.
Family
• Daughter: Scheffer, Cornelia
Related persons
• was teacher of Bartholdi, Auguste
• painted Chopin, Frédéric
• was a friend of Cogniet, Léon
• painted Liszt, Franz
• was teacher of Perugini, Charles Edward
• was teacher of Puvis de Chavannes, Pierre
• was sculpted by Scheffer, Cornelia
• was teacher of Verlat, Karel
• was a friend of Viardot, Louis
• painted Viardot-Garcia, Pauline
• was a friend of Viardot-Garcia, Pauline
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