Moreau-deschanvres Auguste (1838-1913) l'Heure Du Goûter (afternoon Tea), 1912 Oil On Canvas

Auguste Moreau-Deschanvres (1838-1913)
Student of Julien Potier at the academic schools of Valenciennes, the painter Auguste Moreau-Deschanvres (1838-1913) lived in the house-studio that he had built in Saint-Saulve, where he devoted himself to photography with his daughters, sometimes lending himself to the reconstruction of delicious living paintings. Essentially devoted to portraiture and genre scenes - more rarely to religious painting - his career was punctuated by submissions to Salons, most often in the North, but also in Paris. We owe several portraits of Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux to Moreau-Deschanvres. The first, dated 1873, was probably made from a photograph and shows a sick and aging Carpeaux standing out against a dark background. The second, a grisaille medallion, would have been painted to adorn "the catafalque of the ardent chapel erected under the porch of the Acacémies de Valenciennes, November 29, 1875." It was deposited in 1924 at the Museum of Fine Arts in the city of Valenciennes. The third, and most important, was probably inspired by the artist's photograph published in the "Galerie Contemporain Literaire et Artistique". Moreau-Deschanvres, had offered to create the portrait of the deceased sculptor for the historical gallery of the Fine Arts section of the Agricultural Society of Valenciennes. In 1876, Moreau-Deschanvres sent his: Carpeaux in his workshop to the Paris Salon. His face supported by one hand, in a melancholic posture, the sculptor contemplates us with a feverish gaze while two of his emblematic works are silhouetted behind him: the Child with the Shell and The City of Valenciennes Defending the Homeland, intended for pediment of the Town Hall. This large portrait is now in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts.