Auguste Toulmouche | |
|---|---|
 Portrait of Toulmouche byJean-Louis Hamon | |
| Born | 21 September 1829 Nantes, France |
| Died | 16 October 1890(1890-10-16) (aged 61) Paris, France |
| Education | Charles Gleyre |
| Relatives | Frédéric Toulmouche (cousin) |
| Awards | Commander of theLegion of Honour (1870) |
Auguste Toulmouche (21 September 1829 – 16 October 1890) was a Frenchpainter known for his luxuriousgenre paintings of upper middle class Parisian women in domestic scenes.
Auguste Toulmouche was born inNantes to Émile Toulmouche, a well-to-do broker, and Rose Sophie Mercier.[1] The composerFrédéric Toulmouche was his cousin.[1] He studied drawing and sculpture locally with the sculptorAmédée Ménard and painting with the portraitist Biron before moving to Paris in 1846 to study with the painterCharles Gleyre.[1][2] He was said to be one of Gleyre's favored students,[1] and he exhibited his first paintings at the Paris Salon in 1848 when he was just 19.[2] He exhibited again in 1849 and 1850, at which time he was specializing in portraits.[1]
Toulmouche painted in an idealizing version of the dominantacademic realist style, and his subjects were frequently Parisian women who belonged to the upper bourgeoisie.[2][3] His work was popular in both France and America, and the emperorNapoleon III bought one of his paintings,La fille (The Girl), for his future empressEugénie in 1852,[3] with further purchases by the imperial family the following year confirming Toulmouche's status as a fashionable painter.[1] He was generally approved by critics, winning medals at the Paris Salon in 1852 and 1861, and he was made a Chevalier of theLegion of Honor in 1870.[2] During his heyday, his reputation was comparable to that of artists likeAlfred Stevens andCarolus-Duran.[1] However, with their emphasis on sumptuous clothing and richly furnished domestic interiors, his paintings were also dismissed by some critics as "elegant trifles", and the writerÉmile Zola referred somewhat dismissively to the "delicious dolls of Toulmouche".[2][4] With the rise ofImpressionism in the 1870s, his popularity suffered a decline from which it never recovered.[1]
By his 1861 marriage to Marie Lecadre, daughter of Nantes lawyer Alphonse Henri Lecadre, Toulmouche became a cousin by marriage of the painterClaude Monet.[1] Toulmouche sent the young Monet to study with Gleyre.[1][5]
In 1870, Toulmouche joined one of the battalions defending Paris against the German invasion in theFranco-Prussian War.[1] After the war ended, he spent more time at theAbbey of Blanche-Couronne near Nantes, which was part of a large estate inherited by his wife on the death of her father.[1] He built a workshop on the abbey grounds and invited many Parisian friends to spend time there, includingGeneviève Halévy,José-Maria de Heredia,Paul Baudry,Jules-Élie Delaunay,Ernest Reyer, and the youngIgnacy Jan Paderewski.[1]
Toulmouche died suddenly in Paris following an episode ofsyncope, and he is buried atMontparnasse Cemetery.[1]
Much of his work is still in private collections, but theLouvre, theMuseum of Fine Arts, Boston, theSterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, and theMusée d'Arts de Nantes hold examples of his work.[3][6]
In 2023, his paintingLa Fiancée hésitante (The Reluctant Bride), not among his best-known works in its time, became a widely spread illustration for women's anger onTikTok.[7]
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