Creator Record
Metadata
Name |
Vaudechamp, Jean Joseph |
Notes |
Born in Rambervillers, France in 1790, Jean Joseph Vaudechamp moved to Paris following the French Revolution. There he lived with his father's aunt, who was good friends with the artist Anne-Louis Girodet. At the age of twenty, Vaudechamp began apprenticing under Girodet. Not only was Girodet one of the most well-respected artists in Paris at the time, but while working in his studio the young Vaudechamp would have had access to many examples of classical drawings and paintings, as well as literature from antiquity. Although he was able to make a name for himself by displaying his work in many of the Parisian salons, he lived constantly in the shadow of his master. At the age of forty-one he traveled to the city of New Orleans, Louisiana to "seek his fortune abroad." Vaudechamp set up a studio in what is today known as the French Quarter and spent the next ten years traveling back and forth between the United States and France, spending the winter months in New Orleans painting portraits of the local elite. His subjects were mostly Creoles, or the citizens of the city who identified themselves as French rather than American, and in fact had a rather tense relationship with their American rivals. These portraits were usually painted in the neoclassical style with the half-length sitter against a plain, olive and brown colored background. Vaudechamp showed great attention to details, especially in the features of his sitters, which resulted in very realistic likenesses of his patrons. His portraits accurately convey the sitters' personalities, making them more believable renderings of Creole culture than any of the other French-born artists in New Orleans were able to accomplish. Vaudechamp's ability to render the self-contained nature of his Creole sitters and paint them in such a way that, through portraiture, they could de-Americanize themselves, made him the most popular portrait painter in New Orleans. |
Nationality |
French |
Occupation |
Portraitist |
