Thomas Couture

Thomas Couture (Dec 21, 1815 - Mar 30, 1879) was an influential French history painter and teacher. Couture taught such later luminaries of the art world as Édouard Manet, Henri Fantin-Latour, John La Farge, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Karel Javůrek, and J-N Sylvestre. he was an important painter and teacher. His most famous work is entitled The Romans of Decadence.

Born in Senlis, his family settled in Paris in 1826, where he studied at the Ecole des Arts et Metiers and then at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In 1830 he entered the studio of Antoine Gros then of Paul Delaroche. He failed six times in the Prix de Rome competition, but eventually won the second prize in 1837.

He exhibited as early as 1840 at the Salon de Paris where he was medalist in 1847 for Les Romains de la décadence. On November 11, 1848, he was promoted to the rank of Knight of the Legion of Honor. Shortly after this success, Thomas Couture opened an independent workshop that competes with the School of Fine Arts by training the best talents in historical painting. Throughout his life, he formed artists such as Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, who remained for a short time, Édouard Manet, who, despite his conflicting relations with Couture, frequented his workshop for six and a half years, or the American Charles Caryl Coleman. He also influenced painters like Fritz Zuber-Bühler.

By the end of the 1840s he had obtained orders from the State and the clergy for murals, but he would never finish the first two orders, while the third met with little success. Disappointed, he left Paris in 1860 and returned to Senlis, his hometown, where he continued his teaching.

In 1867 he published Methodology and Workshop Interviews, a work detailing his conceptions of art and technique.

To an editor proposing to write an autobiography, Thomas Couture replied: "Biography is the exaltation of personality ... and personality is the scourge of our time. "

He died at Villiers-le-Bel in Île-de-France where he lived in a residence known as the Château. The next day, he was buried in Paris at the Pere-Lachaise cemetery (4th Division) in the presence of many people including his former students Arago, Armand-Dumaresq, Barbedienne, Monginot and Stevens. Its funerary monument is the work of the sculptor Louis-Ernest Barrias8.

A completed sketch of his Young Falconer (circa 1844-1845) went public sale in Uzès on 20 December 20059; An old copy of the painting is kept at the hotel of the prefecture of Deux-Sèvres in Niort.

Public Collections:
In Algeria
Algiers, National Museum of Fine Arts: The Enrollment of Volunteers, Study, Oil on canvas
In the USA
Boston Museum of Fine Arts: The Widow, 1840, oil on canvas
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art: The Soap Bubble, 1859, oil on canvas
Philadelphia Philadelphia Museum of Art: The Troubadour, 1834, oil on canvas
Toledo, Ohio, art museum: The Fauconnier, circa 1844, oil on canvas
In France
Aurillac, museum of art and archeology: Portrait of Éloy Chapsal, 1834, oil on canvas
Beauvais, departmental museum of the Oise:
The Enlistment of the Volunteers of 1792, 1848, oil on canvas10
Two volunteers: the noble and the worker, studies for The Enrollment of Volunteers, oil on canvas
Châlons-en-Champagne, museum of fine arts and archeology: Soudard et Femme, oil on canvas
Chartres, musée des beaux arts: Sleeping girl, oil on canvas
Castle of Compiègne:
Madame Bruat, oil on canvas
Baptism of the Imperial Prince, oil on canvas
Reading, oil on canvas
Princess Mathilde, oil on canvas
Dijon, musée Magnin: Love Leading the World, oil on canvas
Lyon, Museum of Fine Arts:
Monk seen from behind
Naked woman
Paris, Saint-Eustache church, chapel of the Virgin:
The Star Madonna of the Sailors
The triumphant Virgin adored by the Angels
The Comforter of the Afflicted
Paris, Army Museum: The Lieutenant-General Viscount de Bonnemains (1773-1850), oil on canvas
Paris, musée Carnavalet: Portrait of Jules Michelet, 1843, oil on canvas
Paris, Louvre Museum:
Adolphe Moreau, 1845, oil on canvas
Young woman in bust with bare shoulders, oil on canvas
Drawings fund kept in the Department of Graphic Arts
Paris, musée d'Orsay:
The Romans of the Decadence, 1847, oil on canvas
Study of nude, oil on canvas
Figure of Pifferaro, 1877, oil on canvas
Paris, Petit Palais: Portrait of Léon Ohnet, 1841, oil on canvas
Rennes, museum of fine arts of Rennes: The modern courtesan, sketch, oil on canvas
Senlis, museum of art and archeology: Still life: cock hung by a paw, oil on canvas
Toulouse, musée des Augustins:
The Love of Gold, 1844, oil on canvas
The Love of Gold, 1844, oil on canvas, study
Palace of Versailles: Madame Sand, drawing
UK
London, Wallace Collection: Horace and Lydie, 1834, oil on canvas

Gallery:
Frescoes of the chapel of the Virgin in the church of Saint-Eustache in Paris
Left panel: Virgin of the sailors.
Central Panel: The triumphant Virgin adored by the Angels.
Right panel: The Madonna consoling the afflicted.

Works of Thomas Couture
La Chasse aux oiseaux (1857), Budapest Museum of Fine Arts.
The Romans of decadence (1847), Paris, Musée d'Orsay.
The Enlistment of the volunteers of 1792 (1848), Beauvais, museum mental depart of the Oise.
https://hisour.com/artist/thomas-couture/