Théophile Thoré-Bürger

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Nadar
(c. 1865)

Étienne-Joseph-Théophile Thoré (better known as Théophile Thoré-Bürger) (23 June 1807 – 30 April 1869) was a French journalist and art critic. He is best known today for rediscovering the work of painter Johannes Vermeer and several other prominent Dutch artists.

Biography

Thoré-Bürger was born in La Flèche, Sarthe. His career as art critic started in the 1830s, but he was also active as a political journalist. In March 1848 he founded La Vraie République, which Louis-Eugène Cavaignac soon banned. A year later, in March 1849, he founded another newspaper, Le Journal de la vraie République, which Cavaignac also banned. Consequently, Thoré-Bürger went into exile to Brussels and continued publishing articles as Willem Bürger. He returned to France after the amnesty of 1859, dying in Paris ten years later.

Today, Thoré-Bürger is best known for rediscovering the work of

View of Delft in the Mauritshuis of The Hague
. Vermeer's name was wholly forgotten at the time; Thoré-Bürger was so impressed with the View of Delft that he spent the years before his exile searching for other works by the painter. He would eventually publish descriptions and a catalogue of Vermeer's work, although many of the paintings he attributed to the master were later proven to have been executed by others.

He lived for more than a decade with Apolline Lacroix, the wife of his collaborator Paul Lacroix, the curator of the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal.[1] On Thoré-Bürger's death, she inherited his valuable art collection, much of which was eventually sold.[1][2][3]

Selected publications

  • Dictionnaire de phrénologie et de physiognomonie, à l'usage des artistes, des gens du monde, des instituteurs, des pères de famille, des jurés, etc., 1836 Available online
  • La Vérité sur le parti démocratique, 1840 Available online
  • Catalogue de dessins des grands maîtres, provenant du cabinet de M. Villenave, 1842
  • Le Salon de 1844, précédé d'une lettre à Théodore Rousseau, 1844
  • Dessins de maîtres, Collection de feu M. Delbecq, de Gand, 1845 Available online
  • Catalogue des estampes anciennes formant la collection de feu M. Delbecq, de Gand, 1845 Available online
  • La Recherche de la liberté, 1845
  • Le Salon de 1845, précédé d'une lettre à Béranger, 1845
  • Le Salon de 1846, précédé d'une Lettre à George Sand, 1846 Available online
  • Le Salon de 1847, précédé d'une Lettre à Firmin Barrion, 1847 Available online
  • Mémoires de Caussidière, ex-préfet de police et représentant du peuple, with Marc Caussidière, 2 vol., 1849 Available online: 1, 2
  • La Restauration de l'autorité, ou l'Opération césarienne, 1852
  • Dans les bois, 1856
  • En Ardenne, par quatre Bohémiens. Namur, Dinant, Han, Saint-Hubert, Houffalize, La Roche, Durbuy, Nandrin, Comblain, Esneux, Tilf, Spa, in collaboration with other writers, 1856
  • Trésors d'art exposés à Manchester en 1857 et provenant des collections royales, des collections publiques et des collections particulières de la Grande-Bretagne, 1857
  • Amsterdam et La Haye. Études sur l'école hollandaise, 1858
  • Çà & là, 1858
  • Musées de la Hollande, 2 vol., 1858–1860
  • Études sur les peintres hollandais et flamands. Galerie d'Arenberg, à Bruxelles avec le catalogue complet de la collection, 1859
  • Musée d'Anvers, 1862
  • Trésors d'art en Angleterre, 1862
  • Van der Meer (Vermeer) de Delft, 1866

Published posthumously

  • Les Salons : études de critique et d'esthétique, 3 vol., 1893
  • Thoré-Bürger peint par lui-même : lettres et notes intimes, 1900 Available online

References

  1. ^
    doi:10.4000/litteratures.668
    .
  2. JSTOR 3780951
    .
  3. JSTOR 40383198
    .

External links

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