Paul Chevandier de Valdrome
Paul Antoine Marie Chevandier de Valdrome (17 March 1817, in Saint-Quirin – 2 September 1877, in Hautot-sur-Mer) was a French landscape painter in the Neoclassical style. He also created a few Orientalist works and was a prominent art collector.
Biography[edit]
His father, Jean Auguste Chevandier de Valdrome, was a Master glassmaker who was also a politician; serving as a member of Parliament from 1821 to 1837, and the Chamber of Peers after that.[1] His brother, Eugène Chevandier de Valdrome, briefly served as Minister of the Interior under Napoleon III.
He studied art with Prosper Marilhat and François-Édouard Picot, but was especially influenced by the landscape painter, Louis-Nicolas Cabat, whom he accompanied on a trip to Italy from 1836 to 1837, following his first exhibit at the Salon. They became lifelong friends.[2] He would continue to travel throughout his life; notably visiting Constantine, Algeria, in 1847.
His Paris studio was in Montmartre and became a meeting place for many notables, such as Félix Ziem, Prince Edmond de Polignac and Frédéric Chopin, who is said to have been inspired to write his Piano Sonata No. 2 during a visit there, when he saw a skeleton that Chevandier was using as a model.[3]
In 1868, against the wishes of his family, he married Jeanne Émilie Lelarge (1845-1898), an actress who performed at the Théâtre de l'Ambigu-Comique and the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin under the stage name Jeanne (or Émilie) Defodon.[4] Three years earlier, they had produced an illegitimate son, Paul Auguste Armand (1865-1914).
He was named a Chevalier in the Legion of Honor in 1869.[5] During the Franco-Prussian War, he sent his family to safety, but remained behind and helped convert a hotel into a hospital for the wounded. After the war, they reunited and travelled to Switzerland for a vacation, then settled in Marseille.[6]
Soon, however, Jeanne began a liaison with a certain "Baron" Marx Von Pforstein. This resulted in a judicial separation and Paul moved to the North Coast with Armand. After Paul's death Armand, still only twelve, was placed in the custody of the Dominican Fathers in Arcueil; under the supervision of his uncle Eugène. In 1878, Jeanne made an unsuccessful attempt to kidnap Armand during a parental visit, creating a scandal that was covered widely in the press.[7] Armand went on to become a diplomat. In 1914, he was murdered at the French Embassy in Tangier, by a cook who had been dismissed for alcoholism.[8]
References[edit]
- ^ Dictionnaire des parlementaires français de 1789 à 1889, edited by Adolphe Robert and Gaston Cougny, Bourloton Online
- ^ Émile Bellier de La Chavignerie, General Dictionary of French School Artists from the beginning of the drawing arts to the present day: architects, painters, sculptors, engravers and lithographers, Library Renouard, 1881 Online
- ^ "Chopin's skeleton", in The Herald of Music, C. F. Kelly, July 1897 Online Archived 2014-02-02 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Paul Mahalin, Les Jolies Actrices de Paris, Tresse éditeur, 1878 Online
- ^ Martine Plouvier, Dossiers de Proposition de Légion D’Honneur 1852-1870, 2005
- ^ "One phase of French life: The remarkable matrimonial vicissitudes of the de Valdromes", in the New York World, 30 April 1878. Online
- ^ Émile Villemot, "Le petit Armand:L'affaire Chevandier de Valdrome", in Le Gaulois, 6 January 1878 Online
- ^ Jean-Marc Delaunay, Méfiance cordiale - Les relations franco-espagnoles a la Première Guerre mondiale, L'Harmattan, 2010 ISBN 978-2-296-54484-0 Online
External links[edit]
Media related to Paul Chevandier de Valdrome at Wikimedia Commons
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