Ignace Scott Dabo
| Ignace Schott de Dabo | |
|---|---|
| Born |
July 27, 1818 Dabo, Moselle, Lorraine, France |
| Died | March 3, 1883 (aged 64) Detroit, Michigan |
| Nationality |
 France
|
| Known for | Painting Stained Glass Etcher |
Ignace Schott de Dabo (July 28, 1818 – March 3, 1883) generally known by the name Ignace Schott, he was a French born artist, etcher and teacher. Born in Dabo, located in the Lorraine region of France, he was a successful ecclesiastic decorator. He worked mostly as a mural painter but also in stained glass and many of his creations have survived to this day. Much of his work from the mid 19th century was created in and around Saverne, France not far from Dabo, but the last thirteen years of his life and career Ignace worked in the Detroit, Michigan area of the United States. He is perhaps best known as the father of the tonalist painters Leon Dabo and Theodore Scott-Dabo.
None of his personal records are known to exist, thus little of Ignace's early life or artistic training is more than conjecture. Yet there are a few clues. One obituary stated that he was a pupil of Paul Delaroche. His eldest son Leon, also an artist who wrote and lectured on art, stated in an article on religious art that in "Detroit there was a talented Frenchman, Ignace Schott, who was a pupil of Delacroix." Leon also mentioned in some correspondence that his father was a "fellow student of J. M. Whistler's at Gleyre's studio." In a magazine article on stained glass, Leon wrote that Friederichs and Staffin of Detroit had a French designer in the 1870s (Leon's father) who had been trained by Champigneulle. These few hints do fit the timeline of when Ignace would have been studying at the beginning his career.
Much of Ignace's known works are ecclesiastic murals. One of Ignace's first teachers, Eugène Delacroix worked for many years in Paris on a number of mural commissions beginning in 1833. Ignace would have been fifteen years old then, an appropriate time for an apprenticeship. Paul Delaroche taught painting in Paris until 1843, and the Swiss painter Charles Gleyre took over Delaroche's studio and opened it to students twice a week for instruction. It is known that by 1846 Ignace was in Saverne and worked fairly extensively in the area through to 1869, he executed several mural works for the religious community there. The General Inventory of Cultural Heritage for Alsace lists a number of signed works on the walls of Ste Leger Church in Reinhardsmunster, Ste Gallen Church in Siltzhiem, Ste Florent Church in Weislingen, as well as a convent and bishop's residence near Saverne. A professor in Saverne from 1849 to 1869, Ignace seems to have also been a professor of aesthetics in Nancy at some point during these two decades. In the late 1850s Ernest Delannoy and James McNeill Whistler traveled through Alsace-Lorraine, their friend of Dabo joined them on a few sketching excursions. It is possible that it was Ignace's workshop in Saverne where Whistler made some of the first etchings for The French Set. In the 1860s Charles-François Champigneulle worked in stained glass and had his workshop in Metz, just north of Nancy and west of Dabo and Saverne, Ignace was in the right time and place to assist with Champigneulle's work restoring church windows that had been damaged during the revolution.
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