Jean Desbrosses (1835–1906) - View of the Abondance Valley, Switzerland

Jean Alfred DESBROSSES
(Paris, 1835 – Paris, 1906)

View of the Abondance Valley, Switzerland

Oil on canvas
Signed lower right
26.5 x 41cm

Jean-Alfred Desbrosses was born in Paris on May 28, 1835, into a humble working-class family. The far youngest of three children, Jean was quick to follow the example of his two older brothers – Joseph, sculptor born in 1819 and died early in 1844 and Léopold, painter, and etcher, born in 1821 – and therefore embraced, like them, an artistic career as a painter to the great displeasure of Father Desbrosses!

It all began with the revolution of 1848 and the misery that followed. Jean, then aged 13 and despite his protests, was placed by his father as an apprentice with an upholsterer who soon closed his shop. So here he is, back home. Taking his courage in both hands, fleeing his father's home, Jean knocked on the door of a friend to whom his two older brothers were linked: Antoine Chintreuil (1814-1873), about fifteen years older, a painter by vocation. and bookseller by necessity. They established an unwavering friendship until the death of Chintreuil who provided him with his first artistic training.

Desbrosses began at the Salon in 1861 as a student of Ary Scheffer and exhibited there until his death in 1906. He began by presenting there until 1875, paintings testifying to the rusticity of life at the time, full of a healthy and fulfilled naturalism. However, these scenes of life are never completely balanced. Critics then noted that we noticed in his paintings very successful pieces unfortunately spoiled by regrettable incorrectness... But Desbrosses' aesthetic had been formed with Chintreuil and had made him above all a landscaper. After the death of his friend in 1873, a new Desbrosses revealed himself, emerging from the shadow of his master; the second phase of his career begins. He returned to the landscape and then began to travel. First the Ardennes, then the Jura, after Savoie, then Auvergne... These escapades will be for him and until the end of his days, an inexhaustible source of inspiration, like our painting.

Museums: Paris (Mus. d’Orsay), Reims, Arras, Chartres, Carcassonne, Lille, Clermont-Ferrand…