Eugène Flandin

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Eugène Flandin
Born
Jean-Baptiste Eugène Napoléon Flandin

(1809-08-15)15 August 1809
Naples, French Empire
Died29 September 1889(1889-09-29) (aged 80)
Tours, France
NationalityFrench

Jean-Baptiste Eugène Napoléon Flandin (15 August 1809 in

archaeologist, and politician. Flandin's archeological drawings and some of his military paintings are valued more highly by museum authorities than his purely artistic paintings. He is most renowned for his famous drawings and paintings of Persian monuments, landscapes, and social life made during his travels with the architect Pascal Coste during the years 1839–41. Flandin's observations on Iran
and international politics in the mid-19th century also continue to provide important documentary information.

First Trip to Iran

See also: List of paintings and plots by Pascal Coste and Eugène Flandin

In 1839, Flandin was, along with Coste, made a laureate of the

Légion d’honneur
.

Archaeological work

A 19th-century reconstruction of Persepolis, by Flandin and Pascal Coste

In March 1843, after fruitless searching for the site of

Khorsabad. Botta mistook the place for the actual site of Nineveh (Assyro-Babylonian cuneiform
had not yet been deciphered). In October, Flandin was appointed to Botta's mission by the
Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres
to draw the excavated remains and inscriptions. He also participated in the excavations which ended in October 1844.

Significance of his writings

Despite its many predecessors, Flandin's Voyage en Perse remains a model of its kind and an important source, particularly on early Qajar Iran, due to both its text and its illustrations. It provides many precious observations on history, archeology, arts, architecture, geography, social and court life, royal and provincial administration, military organization, etc. Itineraries are carefully noted. A table of distances between clearly identified stages is given in “time necessary at the ordinary pace of a horse”.[1]

Endowed with many gifts and professional skills (classical, military, and Orientalist painting; archeological drawing; writing and reporting; military and civil administration), Flandin provides us with very precious observations, accounts, and pictures. There is hardly any illustrated book on Iran, particularly one dealing with the Qajar period, without reproductions of his celebrated paintings of monuments, bazaars, personages and costumes, street scenes, landscapes, etc. All this work, supplemented with precise written observations, was accomplished despite the many hardships endured by Coste and Flandin during their travels. However, Flandin's pioneering work in archeological drawing was, soon after his Oriental expeditions, superseded by the new art of photography. Daguerreotype and calotype made it possible to prepare pictures, notably of archeological remains, quickly and precisely, although archeological drawing still remains an indispensable complement to research and publication.

See also

References

  1. ^ Voyage en Perse, Itinéraire, I, pp. 505-8

External links

Media related to Eugène Flandin at Wikimedia Commons

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