Louis-François Cassas

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Louis-François Cassas
etcher
Detail of Brest, Penfeld harbour in 1777, by Louis-François Cassas.

Louis-François Cassas (June 3, 1756 – November 1, 1827) was a distinguished French landscape painter, sculptor, architect, archeologist and antiquary born at Azay-le-Ferron, in the Indre Department of France. His father was an artisan in the office of the "Ponts et Chaussés", and Cassas followed him there as an apprentice draughtsman when he was only fifteen years old.[1]

Life

As the godson of the Marquis Louis-François de Gallifet, owner of the

Louis Jean François Lagrenée the younger (1739–1821), as well as Roccoco painters such as Jean-Baptiste Le Prince (1734–1781).[1]
In 1778 Cassas went to Rome,
Adriatic coast. These drawings were later published as engravings and reproduced to 69 copperplate printings in his 2-volume book Voyage pittoresque et historique de l'Istrie et de la Damatie, published in Paris in 1802. The original watercolors are at the Victoria and Albert Museum London.[1]

Château et portion de la ville de Hemss, jadis Émèse, where Cassas represented himself drawing (Voyage pittoresque de la Syrie, 1799, plate 20)

From 1784 to 1786, Cassas lived and worked at the French embassy.

Middle Eastern
sites, many of which had never been recorded.

Etching after Louis-François Cassas showing an imagined caravan arriving at the ancient site of Palmyra, Syria. Created ca. 1799.

At the beginning of the

Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne, and a publication archive—which includes proof-plates and a manuscript detailing Cassas’ journey—is held by the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles.[5]

At the turn of the eighteenth to nineteenth century, the artist had already combined his first observations of Egyptian monuments in a series of paintings which were very influential on many artists and stage designers in the early decades of the nineteenth century.[6] He was appointed as drawing professor and later as General Inspector at the Gobelin Tapestry Manufactory, for contributing to the development of products from this factory.[7]

He died in

Versailles of a stroke of apoplexy, on November 1, 1827,[8] invested with several orders of knighthood, including the Légion d'honneur,[3] granted to him by the king on May 21, 1821.[9] After his death Cassas was largely forgotten and his work was greatly neglected. In 1973, the government of Yugoslavia paid homage to Cassas issuing a postage stamp of the city of Split from one of his 1782 etchings called Vue de Spalatro et du Lazareth.[1]

Works

As an architect, he was occupied many years in forming a large collection of 745 architectural models of ancient monuments in cork and terracotta in almost every kind of style, from many countries and epochs. They were exhibited in 1806, along with engravings of the original sites and present-day ruins behind them. Eventually, he came to disposed of them for a small annuity to the imperial government for the general use of the public.[10] They were deposited in the Palais de l'Institut and later transferred to Paris's École des Beaux-Arts.[11]

Besides his architectural and archaeological drawings and sketches, he drew numerous costumes studies, views and processions, as well as scenes from daily life, plants and animals of all sorts. He also exhibited views of his travels at the "Salons", which were periodic art exhibitions sponsored by the French Académie Royale, in 1804 and 1814, and published Picturesque views of the Principal Sites and Monuments of Greece, of Sicily, and of the Seven Hills of Rome, of which thirty parts had already been published by 1813.

See also

Notes

  • Collection of Modern and Contemporary Voyages & Travels, vol. I, printed for Richard Phillips, 6, Bridge-street, Blackfriars, by Bernard & Sulter, Water Lane, Fleet Street, London, 1805.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Marisa Ciceran. "Relevant Non-Istrians". Istrianet.org. Retrieved 10 February 2010.
  2. ^ a b c Juan de la Torre Suárez. "La Egiptología, Egipto y los Primeros viajeros del siglo XVIII". Egiptomania.com. Retrieved 10 February 2010.
  3. ^
  4. ^ Frances Terpak and Peter Bonfitto. "Louis-Francois Cassas". The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra. The Getty Research Institute. Retrieved 10 February 2017.
  5. ^ Louis Gabriel Michaud, Biographie universelle ancienne et moderne, vol. 4, pg. 128, Paris, 1854. (in French)
  6. ^ Hugh James Rose, A new general biographical dictionary, Vol. 6, pg. 99, London, 1857.
  7. ^ Antoine-Vincent Arnault, Antoine Jay, Etienne de Jouy, Norvins (M. de), Biographie nouvelle des contemporains: ou Dictionnaire historique, pg. 163, Paris, 1821.
  8. ^ Taylor Institute, The Foreign review, vol. 2, pg. 653, London, 1828.

Bibliography

External links