Alfred Dehodencq (1822 - 1882) - The Entombment

Edme Alexis Alfred DEHODENCQ
(Paris, 1822 – Paris, 1882)

The Entombment

Oil on canvas
25 x 40 cm
Around 1848

Related work: Christ in the tomb exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1848 under number 1148

Alfred Dehodencq was born in 1822. Like all true painters, he showed amazing abilities early on. He did not choose painting; painting imposed itself on him. Entering the studio of Léon Cogniet at a young age, he immediately became its most brilliant student. In 1846, at the age of twenty-four, he obtained his first medal with a portrait.
In the days of June 1848, he received a bullet in the right arm, above the elbow joint. The following year he left for the waters of Barèges. He had always dreamed of Spain, the Orient, the countries of hot suns and burning colors. He crosses the Pyrenees. Once caught in the enchantment of this nature he loved, he could not break the spell; he forgot himself there for years, without worrying about the future, all in the joy of painting. This long absence weighed on the rest of his life like a fatality. She made him the painter of Spain, the Gitanos and Morocco. He lived a few months in Madrid, years in Seville; from where he sent the paintings intended to be exhibited at the Salon. From Cadiz - where he married a Spanish woman in 1857 - to Morocco, there is only one step: Dehodencq could not resist the temptation to cross it. He glimpsed on the land of Africa a whole world still unknown and which he sensed in accordance with his talent. He lingered in Tangier, where he made numerous studies which still tell us about his skills as an ardent colorist and expressive draftsman, like Delacroix to whom he was compared all his life.
In 1863, he finally decided to return to France. After fourteen years of absence! He was forgotten, more than one had believed him dead. He had to redo everything.
In 1870, after the success of the Jewish Festival in Tangier, he was decorated.
Alfred Dehodencq died on January 2, 1882 in Paris. He is buried in the cemetery of Montmartre.

Museums: Paris (Mus. d’Orsay), Pau, Bordeaux, Dijon, Dinan, Lille Lyon, Poitiers, Reims, Vizille, Madrid, Oran, Algiers, Baltimore, Washington…

Our painting, representing the Entombment of Christ, is the preparatory sketch for the large canvas (226 x 340 cm) currently hung in the parish church of Saint-Ursmer located in the town of Eppe-Sauvage in Hauts-de-France. -France. This large format was initially exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1848. Subsequently, this burial was sent by the State to the Saint-Ursmer church in Eppe-Sauvage in 1881 knowing that in 1879, the work was previously proposed to the town of Montargis, which refused it because of its size.
The drawing department of the Louvre also has several preparatory pen sketches for this same composition.