Félix Brissot de Warville (1818-1892) - Sheep at the sheepfold

Félix Saturnin BRISSOT de WARVILLE
(Véron, 1818 – Versailles, 1892)

Sheep at the sheepfold

Oil on panel
Signed lower left
28 x 36 cm

Félix Saturnin Brissot de Warville was born in the Yonne, at Véron near Sens, on May 7, 1818.
He is the grandson of Jacques Pierre Brissot de Warville (1754-1793) who was an influential Girondin conventional during the French Revolution and the son of Anacharsis Brissot de Warville (1791-1854), a man of letters under the Restoration.

As pupil of Léon Cogniet at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Félix Brissot de Warville took part in the Paris Salon from 1846 until his death. He sent no less than one hundred and fifty paintings there throughout his career, some of which were rewarded.

This painting is characteristic of the production of Félix Saturnin Brissot de Warville. Essentially a painter of rural and animal scenes, he was interested in turn in the landscapes of the Loire Valley, Île-de-France, Normandy and Agenais, before devoting himself to the evocation of the Pyrenees and the Tarbes countryside from 1860.

Napoleon III made him the manager of the Palace of Compiègne, a position he held until his retirement at the end of 1882.

The artist died in Versailles on June 26, 1892.

Museums: Boston, New York (Brooklyn Mus.), Bagnères-de-Bigorre, Dieppe, Laval, Marseille, Nevers, Troyes, Rueil-Malmaison, Versailles, Toulouse…