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Joseph Nicolas Robert-Fleury

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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ROBERT - FLEURY, JOSEPH Nicolas (1797-1890), French painter, was born at Cologne. He was sent by his family to Paris, and after travelling in Italy returned to France and made his first appearance at the Salon in 1824; his reputation, however, was not established until three years later, when he exhibited "Tasso at the Convent of St Onoplirius." Endowed with a vigorous original talent, and with a vivid imagination, especially for the tragic incidents of history, he soon rose to fame, and in 1850 succeeded Granet as member of the Academie des Beaux-Arts. In 1855 he was appointed professor and in 1863 director of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, and in the following year he went to Rome as director of the French Academy in that city. Among his chief works are: "A Reading at Mme. de Sevigne's," "Scene of St Bartholomew," "Henry IV. taken to the Louvre after his Assassination" (1836); "Triumphal Entry of Clovis at Tours" (1838), at the Versailles Museum; "Le Colloque de Poissy" (1840), at the Luxembourg Museum in Paris; "The Children of Louis XVI. in the Temple" (1840); "Marino Faliero"; "An Auto-da-fe," "Galileo before the Holy Office," at the Luxembourg Museum; "Christopher Columbus received by the Spanish Court" (1847), at the same gallery; "The Last Moments of Montaigne" (1853); and "Charles V. in the Monastery of Yuste" (1857). He died in Paris in 1890.

His son, Tony Robert-Fleury (1837-), French painter, was born in Paris, and studied under his father and under Delaroche and Leon Coignet. His first picture at the Salon, in 1866, was a large historical composition of the "Warsaw Massacres on April 8, 1861_" In the following year his "Old Women in the Place Navone, Rome" was bought for the Luxembourg Museum, as was also the "Last Day of Corinth" in 1870. In 1880 he painted a ceiling for the Luxembourg, representing "The Glorification of French Sculpture." Tony Robert-Fleury became president of the Societe des Artistes frangais in succession to Bouguereau. He acquired a great reputation for his historical compositions and portraits; and from his atelier have issued a great number of the best-known painters of our day.