The recent upsurge in interest in Romantic artists and history painting in the nineteenth century fully justifies the desire to make the public better aware of the work of Eugène Devéria (Paris, 1805-Pau, 1865). This exhibition, which marks the bicentenary of the painter’s birth, has been facilitated by the opening of private collections and by significant additions to museum collections in recent years.
Eugène Devéria had his hour of glory at the Salon of 1827, where he briefly incarnated the success of the new Romantic school with his painting The Birth of Henry IV. This burst of fame brought him official commissions, especially for the Château of Versailles, and led him into religious painting (in Paris, for Notre Dame de Lorette, in Fougères, and above all in Avignon, with the mural for Notre Dame des Doms). After that, retiring to Pau where he lived as a fervent Calvinist (after his conversion in 1843), Devéria sank into obscurity, and although he still cultivated the historical genre, he devoted his time to portraits and landscapes. His reputation took him to Holland and Scotland, where he specialised in portraiture.
Musée national du château de Pau Web Site
|
TRAVEL CALENDAR
