Alexandre HESSE (1806-1879) - Portrait of Ulysse RENOU, mayor of Vendôme

Alexandre Jean-Baptiste HESSE
(Paris, 1806 - Paris, 1879)

Portrait of Ulysse RENOU
Mayor of Vendôme from 1832 to 1843
Sub-Prefect of Brittany from 1843 to 1848

Oil on canvas of the Maison Colcomb-Bourgeois, Au Spectre Solaire
Signed in the middle right
27.5 x 21.5 cm

Son of Henri-Joseph HESSE, Alexandre Jean-Baptiste was a student of Victor Bertin, his father and Baron Gros. He entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1821. He regularly visited Italy in 1833 and from 1842 to 1847, with a predilection for Venice. He appeared at the Paris Salon from 1833 to 1861. A retrospective exhibition was organized at the Galerie Pierre GAUBERT in Paris in 1979. He became a member of the Institute of Paris in 1867. He was a medalist in 1833 and 1842 and was knighted of the Legion of Honor in 1842 then officer in 1868.
He decorated many churches: the chapel of Sainte-Geneviève at the Saint-Séverin church in Paris; the decoration of the chapel Saint-Gervais and Saint-Protais at the church Saint-Gervais and all the decoration of the church of Chevry, in Seine-et-Marne. He also realized the ceiling of the Lyon Stock Exchange.
His art sometimes dry, due to the technique of the fresco that he practiced a lot, sometimes generous, according to the style of Baron Gros.

Museums: Nantes (Museum of Fine Arts), Narbonne, Paris (Louvre Museum), Périgueux, Pontoise, Versailles ...

Alexandre Jean-Baptiste HESSE creates here a portrait of Ulysse RENOU dressed as Sub-Prefect wearing the tricolor scarf and his Legion of Honor. Ulysse RENOU (1801 - 1870), lawyer in 1825 then royal notary in 1837, was mayor of Vendôme between 9 January 1832 and 9 July 1843 is a particularly long term, approaching 12 years of practice. His career as Sub-Prefect of Brittany under the Monarchy of July began in Vitré in 1843 and ended there in 1848, most likely in February during the revolutionary episodes. It is in this outfit that he wanted to be immortalized.
Ulysse RENOU also seemed to be an enlightened art lover. Indeed, he was President of the Archaeological, Scientific and Literary Society of Vendômois in 1862 and 1865. In addition, two works of the seventeenth century present today at the Vendome Museum belonged to him and he would have donated to museum of his city in 1869 just before his death.