Marcellin Desboutin

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Self-portrait of Marcellin Desboutin, etched on paper in 1879. Held at the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown

Marcellin Gilbert Desboutin (Cérilly 26 August 1823 – 18 February 1902 Nice) was a French painter, printmaker, and writer. Desboutin always signed himself Baron de Rochefort.

Biography

Desboutin was born in Cérilly, Allier on 26 August 1823. His parents were Barthélémy Desboutin, a bodyguard of Louis XVIII, and Baroness Anne-Sophie de Rochefort-Dalie Farges.[1]

He studied at the Collège Stanislas de Paris and began studying law while writing dramatic works. In 1845, he joined the studio of sculptor

École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, then he studied painting for two years under Thomas Couture
. He then traveled in Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy. In 1857, he acquired a large property near Florence, the Ombrellino, where he led a lavish lifestyle and became friends with Edgar Degas.

The

Théâtre Français
of Maurice de Saxe, a play he had written in collaboration with Jules Amigues. In 1873 at the age of 50, ruined by speculations, Desboutin moved to Paris, where he and Degas frequently met—often joined by
Nouvelle Athènes. At Manet's home he met Émile Zola
.

Nina de Villard, Erik Satie, Joséphin Péladan, Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
.

In 1880, longing for the sun drove him to move to Nice, where he remained until 1888.

With the discovery, in a villa in Grasse, of five compositions by Fragonard, Desboutin made five wonderful interpretive drypoints: Surprise, Rendezvous, Confidence, the Lover Crowned and Abandoned.[2]

La Sortie de bébé, etching by Marcellin Desboutin, in L'Eau forte en 1879, Paris, Veuve A. Cadart.

Back in Paris, he helped found the Second National Society of Fine Arts and celebrated his appointment in the order of the Legion of Honour on 8 June 1895 with two hundred guests presided over by Puvis de Chavannes, in one of his favorite restaurants of Montmartre, giving the toast, "Gentlemen, drink to Manet in painting, in Chabrier music, Villiers and Duranty in literature!"[3]

He returned to Nice in 1896 and worked there until his death there in 1902.

As a writer, Desboutin, besides Maurice of Saxony, is the author of a translation of Byron's Don Juan and of a drama performed in the late 1880s, Madame Roland.

Desboutin himself posed for Manet, Renoir and Degas. He is depicted in Degas' famous 1876 painting L'Absinthe. Two of his sons, André Desboutin–known as Mycho—(1870–1937) and Jean Desboutin—known as Tchiquine—(1878–1951), were also artists; the latter a noted photographer. He frequently depicted them in his work.

Portraits

French painter and caricaturist Adolphe-Léon Willette, 1896
Debonair friend of Degas. Self-portrait in pencil with cafe attire

Works

Publications

Bibliography

  • Noël Clément-Janin, La Curieuse Vie de Marcellin Desboutin, peintre, graveur, poète, H. Floury, Paris, 1922
  • Bernard Duplaix, "Marcellin Desboutin Prince des Bohèmes", Les Imprimeries Réunies, Moulins-Yzeure 1985

References

  1. ^ Renée d'Ulmès, "Marcellin Desboutin" in La Plume, 1900, Slatkine Reprints, Genève, 1968, p. 748-751.
  2. ^ Jean Alboise, 'Les peintures décoratives de Fragonard à Grasse gravées par Marcellin Desboutin', L'Artiste, March 1890, pp.300–9; L’Artiste, March 1889, p.128.
  3. ^ "Banquet Desboutin", in La Plume, no. 148, 15 June 1895, pp. 286-87

External links

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