Jacques Raymond Brascassat (1804–1867) - Team of goats

Jacques Raymond BRASCASSAT
(Bordeaux, 1804 – Paris, 1867)

Team of goats

Oil on canvas
Signed and dated lower right
42 x 47 cm
1824

Son of a cooper and a seamstress, Jacques Brascassat was born in Bordeaux on August 30, 1804.
His artistic training began at a very young age as an apprentice to a certain Lacaze, maker of penthouses and trumeaux in Bordeaux. He was then adopted, literally and figuratively, by the amateur painter Théodore Richard who admitted him to the Bordeaux drawing school under the teaching of Jean-Baptiste Dubourdieu. He then joined the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in the studio of Louis Hersent. In 1825, he entered the competition for the Prix de Rome for historical landscape. He only won the second prize, which did not allow him to obtain a stay in Rome. However, thanks to the support of the Duchess of Berry, he exceptionally obtained a pension from King Charles He spent four years there where he was able to meet other artists with whom he became friends such as Léopold Robert and Léon Fleury. On his return, he exhibited his first paintings at the Paris Salon in 1827. He sent paintings there until 1855, not to mention his various participations in other provincial Salons such as Toulouse, Douai, Cambrai, Montpellier, Carcassonne... At the Salon of 1831, he presents four landscapes, the portrait of his dog and a landscape with goats and sheep. The reviews were laudatory, he obtained the first-class medal, he had found his calling: animal painter. From 1835, he devoted himself mainly to animal painting without completely denying the other genres of which he still made a few submissions (still life in 1838, landscape in 1844, portrait in 1855, etc.). To be as accurate as possible in his field, Brascassat attended the Alfort veterinary school. There he also met the man who would become his alter ego in sculpture: Antoine Barye. His successes allowed him to open a new workshop on Boulevard de Clichy in 1857, to which he added a large stable and a courtyard to be able to paint animals in the best possible light.

In 1837, Brascassat was made a knight of the Legion of Honor and was elected a member of the Academy of Fine Arts in 1846. In 1848, he was elected a member of the Royal Academy of Amsterdam, in 1855, he was appointed member of the jury for the Universal Exhibition and in 1857, he was appointed member of the academy of Rio de Janeiro.
Unfortunately, from 1861, his eyesight became too weak for him to continue painting. The artist died on February 28, 1867, in Paris.

Brascassat had among others Ferdinand Chaigneau and Charles-François Daubigny.

Museums: Bordeaux, Reims, Paris (Mus. du Louvre, Mus. Carnavalet), Dijon, Beaune, Nantes, Orléans, Toulouse Houston…