Nicolas Toussaint Charlet Oil On Panel Parisian Militaria Scene

Interesting scene representing officers and an elegant woman in front of a café terrace. Original painting by Nicolas-Toussaint Charlet (1792-1845) The panel measures 29 x 44.6 cm Note some scratches, split panel, to be cleaned. I can be reached for any request 06 62 70 08 91 fredericchavanne@hotmail.com Nicolas-Toussaint Charlet is a French painter and engraver, born December 20, 1792 in Paris where he died on December 30, 1845. Biography Nicolas Toussaint, son of Toussaint Charlet born in 1765 and died on September 9, 1798 in Paris and who was a dragoon in the army of Sambre-et-Meuse and Aimé Anne Lache, lost his father at the age of six. Raised at the School for the Children of the Fatherland, he received a very neglected education. He began life with a mediocre job at the town hall of the 2nd arrondissement of Paris, responsible for registering and screening young recruits. His Bonapartist opinions and the active part he took in the defense of the Clichy barrier caused him to lose his place at the Restoration in 1816. Thus, he is represented alongside other defenders of Paris from Bonapartist circles in the painting. by Horace Vernet, The Barrier of Clichy. Defense of Paris, March 30, 1814. Charlet then entered, in 1817, the workshop of Antoine-Jean Gros where he met Gilles-François Closson and, forced to produce to live, he devoted himself entirely to art, for which he feels a powerful vocation. He begins with a lithograph, The Guard Dies and Does Not Surrender, which immediately gives him a name. Charlet's drawings and watercolors then followed one another quickly and, inspired by the same feelings, achieved the same popularity as Béranger's odes. He succeeded especially in drawing and lithography, and soon acquired immense popularity by treating military subjects or popular scenes that everyone knew in the 19th century, such as You do not therefore know how to die?, The Soldier's Alms, The Resignation or The Grenadier of Waterloo. He also practiced painting successfully (Episode of the Russian campaign, Passage of the Rhine in 1796). He opened a lithography workshop in the 1820s. In his early days, Honoré Daumier worked anonymously for music publishers imitating the Charlet style. Géricault appreciated Charlet's talent: the two artists formed a strong friendship, and traveled to England together. In 1832, he accompanied General de Grigny to the siege of the Antwerp citadel. In 1838, he was appointed professor of drawing at the École Polytechnique. The caricaturist Cham attended his workshop in 1840 as did Théodore Valerio who became both a student and a friend. Jules-Antoine Duvaux and Henri-Charles Landrin were also among his students. He died in Paris on December 30, 1845 at his home at No. 9 rue de l'Abbé-Grégoire. He was a bon vivant, loving to drink and sing, regular and oldest of a drinking hole: the Frileux or Joyeux. Painter of history He also left some great historical paintings, and his Episode of the Russian Campaign (around 1836, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon), admired by Alfred de Musset, is one of the classics of French painting .