Henri-pierre Picou (1824-1895) A Chapel - Nantes

Henri-Pierre PICOU
(Nantes, 1824 - Nantes, 1895)
A chapel
Oil on panel
H. 40.5 cm; L. 31.5 cm
Signed and dated lower left
1850 or 1860

Henri Picou is often considered only as a somewhat mawkish representative of the neo-Greek style that he practiced, unlike his colleagues like Gleyre, Hamon, Gérôme or Toulmouche , throughout his life. Entered Delaroche's workshop at the age of 12, first Second Grand Prix de Rome in 1853 with a Jesus chasing the merchants from the temple, regular exhibitor at the Paris Salon with around 80 paintings between 1847 and his death, Picou was also an excellent painter history and, more occasionally, religious subjects. He thus created decorations for the Notre-Dame de-Bon-Port church in Nantes and for the Saint-Roch and Saint-Eustache churches in Paris, but also for the small church of Chailly en Bière (near Fontainebleau), where the artist resided in the 1850s. It was also in a religious environment that the painter spent the last years of his life, the Saint-Jacques hospice in Nantes. The church represented here has not yet been identified, but it appears to be a chapel dedicated to the Virgin, with on each side of the stained glass window what could be a Holy Family and an Annunciation.