ALFRED DE DREUX (French 1810-1860). Mare And Colt, 1847. Oil on canvas. 32 x 40-1/2 inches (81.3 x 102.9 cm). Signed and...

Description

ALFRED DE DREUX (French 1810-1860)
Mare And Colt, 1847
Oil on canvas
32 x 40-1/2 inches (81.3 x 102.9 cm)
Signed and dated lower left: A. de Dreux 1847

Alfred de Dreux was a celebrated animal painter specializing in romantic, glamorous horse portraits and scenes of the hunt for over thirty years. His marvelous understanding of animal anatomy and behavior won him many fashionable commissions, and his works form part of museum collections worldwide including the Louvre, Paris, the Hermitage, St. Petersburg, the Musee Camondo, Paris and museums in Bordeaux, Dijon and Chantilly. The attitude of the mother to her colt in this painting is characteristic of the painter's sensitivity to and mastery of his subject.

The son of an architect, de Dreux enjoyed a colorful and privileged life. He first studied under Leon Cogniet and then entered the atelier of the distinguished and versatile painter, Eugene Isabey. Throughout his career, however, de Dreux's work was greatly influenced by Theodore Gericault, who was a close friend of his uncle. In 1831, de Dreux exhibited Interieur d'Ecurie at the Paris Salon, which won him immediate fame. From 1840, de Dreu began his celebrated series of portraits of horses from the famous stables of the duc d'Orleans.

Following the Revolution in 1848, the French royal family emigrated to England where de Dreux frequently visited them, painting many equestrian portraits of the exiled King Louis-Philippe and his sons. He returned to France and was commissioned to paint a portrait of Napoleon III in 1859 (Musee de l'Armée, Paris). A dispute arose over this equestrian portrait and in March 1860 de Dreux was killed in a duel by Comte Fleury, Napoleon's principal aide-de-camp.



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