Pair Of Pastoral Scenes, Animated Landscapes With Animals, Late 18th Century, By Jean-daniel Huber

Huber, Jean-Daniel
Geneva, October 9, 1754 – Geneva, January 31, 1845
Pair of pastoral scenes, landscapes animated by animals. Oil on canvas. Unsigned.
H. 27.5cm / W. 34.5cm.
In their original gilded wooden frames (37.5cm x 43.5cm)

Huber, Jean-Daniel

Geneva, October 9, 1754 – Geneva, January 31, 1845

Landscape painter, animal painter and engraver of the first Geneva School, known mainly for his romantic representations of the Bernese Oberland.

Protestant then Catholic from Geneva, from a patrician family, he was the son of Jean Huber (1721-1786), known as "Huber-Voltaire", painter, draftsman, silhouette cutter, engraver and soldier active in Geneva, inventor of “cut-out paintings” known for its abundant humorous iconography of Voltaire. He is the younger brother of François Huber (1750-1831), known as "Huber of the bees", naturalist from Geneva.

Trained as a painter in Geneva, first with his father, then probably with Nicolas-Henri-Joseph de Fassin (1728-1811), known as the "Chevalier de Fassin", a Flemish painter who opened a drawing school in Geneva around 1770. Jean-Daniel Huber continued his studies in Rome (1773) where he seduced a novice, Isabelle Ludovisi, from a Roman princely family. Forced to marry her (she was cloistered again after the ceremony) and to convert to Catholicism, he was finally expelled from Italy in 1777.

Back in Geneva, he painted Lake Geneva and Vaudois landscapes (1778-1786), notably for the English collector William Beckford. Between 1788 and 1794, he executed pastoral scenes inspired by the Bernese Alps, which earned him the nickname of “painter of the Oberland”.

Huber reunited with his wife in Rome in 1797, after the conquest of Italy by French troops. Around 1815, blindness put an end to his artistic work. He is one of the precursors of the romantic landscape in Switzerland.

Bibliography

Apgar, Garry, The Life and Work of Jean Huber of Geneva (1721-1786), 1988.

Apgar, Garry, The singular art of Jean Huber, Voltaire, 1995.

Biographical Dictionary of Swiss Artists, p. 512.

https://www.sikart.ch/kuenstlerinnen.aspx?id=4023461&lng=fr

https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/fr/articles/022033/2006-11-21/

https://collections.geneve.ch/mah/auteur/huber-3