Hippolyte Lanoüe (1812-1872) - The bath of the nymphs

Félix-Hippolyte LANOÜE
(Versailles, 1812 – Versailles, 1872)

The bath of the nymphs

Oil on canvas
Signed at the bottom
41cm in diameter

Félix-Hippolyte Lanoüe was born in Versailles on October 14, 1812. Between 1832 and 1841, he successively took lessons from Victor Bertin and Horace Vernet, then professors at the School of Fine Arts.
In 1837, he won the second Prix de Rome in Historical Landscape. Four years later, in 1841, he won the first Prix de Rome this time with Adam and Eve expelled from the earthly Paradise. From then on, a resident of the French Academy in Rome, he stayed for four years in Italy between January 1842 and December 1845.

Lanoüe appeared very regularly at the Paris Salon from 1833 until his death. He was twice distinguished by a second-class medal at the Salon of 1847 and that of 1861. A great traveller, the artist went several times to Italy where he attached himself more to the study of nature than to that of the masters, and on his return to France ranked himself among the landscape painters of the new school at the time. Like Eugène-Ferdinand Buttura, Achille Bénouville, Charles-Joseph Lecointe or even Alfred de Curzon.

Lanoüe produced a lot and made various trips to several parts of France, to Holland, to Russia, to seek new themes for his inspiration. He was known and recognized as an artist, a good observer of nature, a skilled draftsman, and a distinguished colorist. He was also able to animate his paintings of groups of men and animals treated with the greatest care. Appreciated by the bourgeoisie of the Second Empire, Napoleon III made him a Knight of the Legion of Honor in 1864 and the state bought several paintings from him.

The artist died on January 22, 1872 in Versailles.

Museums: Tours, Caen, Beauvais, Avignon, Niort, Langres, Paris (Mus. du Louvre, Ec. des Beaux-Arts), Dinan, Châlons-sur-Saône, Lisieux, Dijon…