Quick Facts
Biography
Jean-Baptiste Regnault (9 October 1754 – 12 November 1829) was a French painter.
Biography
Regnault was born in Paris, and began life at sea in a merchant vessel. At the age of fifteen his talent attracted attention, and he was sent to Italy by M. de Monval under the care of Bardin. After his return to Paris, Regnault, in 1776, won the Grand Prix for his painting Alexandre and Diogène, and in 1783 he was elected Academician. His diploma picture, the Education of Achilles by Chiron, is now in the Louvre, as also the Christ taken down from the Cross, originally executed for the royal chapel at Fontainebleau, and two minor works – the Origin of Painting and Pygmalion praying Venus to give Life to his Statue.
Besides various small pictures and allegorical subjects, Regnault was also the author of many large historical paintings; and his school, which reckoned amongst its chief attendants Guérin, Crepin, Lafitte, Blondel, Robert Lefèvre, Henriette Lorimier and Alexandre Menjaud, was for a long while the rival in influence of that of David.
Besides Merry-Joseph Blondel, Pierre-Narcisse Guérin, Robert Lefèvre, and Henriette Lorimier, Jean-Baptiste Regnault's students include: Godefroy Engelmann,Louis Hersent, Charles Paul Landon, Hippolyte Lecomte, Jacques Réattu, Jean-Hilaire Belloc.
Jean-Baptiste Regnault was married first to Sophie Meyer, then Sophie Félicité Beaucourt.
He died in Paris. He is buried in Père-Lachaise Cemetery.
Selected works
- Alexandre et Diogène,ou Diogéne Visité par Alexandre (1776)
- L'Éducation d'Achille, (1782), Musée du Louvre.
- Déscente de Croix, (1789), Musée du Louvre.
- Oreste et Iphigénie en Tauride, (1787).
- Le Déluge, (1789/91)? Musée du Louvre.
- Socrate arrachant Alcibiade des bras de la Volupté, (1791), Musée du Louvre.
- La Liberté ou la Mort, (1795), Kunsthalle Hamburg.
- Les Trois Grâces, (1799), Musée du Louvre.
- Desaix recevant la mort à la bataille de Marengo, (1801) Musée du château, Versailles.
- Portrait de Napoléon au camp de Boulogne, (1804).
- La Marche triomphale de Napoléon Ier vers le temple de l'immortalité, (1804).
- Mariage du prince Jérôme et de la princesse de Wurtemberg, (1810).
- "The Judgement of Paris", (1812), Detroit Institute of Art, donation from Cristina and Henry Ford II.
- La Toilette de Vénus, (1815), National Gallery of Victoria.
- L'Amour et l'Hymen buvant dans la coupe de l'Amitié, (1820), Meaux, Musée Bossuet, gift of Professeur Changeux.
- Jupiter et Io (1827), Brest, Musée des Beaux-Arts
- Cupidon et Psyché, (1828).
- Pygmalion et sa statue, (Château de Maisons-Laffitte)
- L'origine de la peinture, (Château de Maisons-Laffitte)