Eugene-Emmanuel Amaury-Duval

Born: 1808

Death: 1885

Biography:

Eugène Emmanuel Amaury Pineux Duval and thus a nephew of the playwright Alexandre Pineux Duval.
He was born in Montrouge. One of the first students in Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres's studio (a strong influence on all Duval's works), Duval took part in the 1829 artists' and scholars' expedition sent by Charles X of France to Greece as the Morea Expedition to produce its archaeological drawings. He first exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1833 with many portraits such as his Green Lady (no longer extant) and his Self-portrait (still to be seen in the musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes ). In 1834 he exhibited his "Greek shepherd discovering an antique bas-relief". From 1834 to 1836 he took a long Grand Tour to Florence, Rome, and Naples, where he discovered Italian Renaissance art. On returning to France he was one of the artists commissioned to decorate churches by the government of Louis-Philippe then Napoleon III – the Sainte Philomène chapel at the église Saint-Merry (1840–1844), the chapel of the virgin at Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois in Paris (1844–1846) then the parish church of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1849–1856). He also published his memoirs. He died in Paris on Christmas Day, 1885.
Baudelaire fiercely criticised the Duval and Ingres school:
76 paintings and drawings by Duval are known, including the following:
The Birth of Venus, 1862, oil on canvas, Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille
Annunciation
Madame de Loynes (Jeanne Détourbay), 1862, oil on canvas, Musée d'Orsay
Ancient bather
Saint Filomena
Woman from St. Jean de Luz
The bather, destroyed during World War II
Study of a child, destroyed 1940

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