Merry-Joseph Blondel
| Merry-Joseph Blondel | |
|---|---|
Blondel by his friend Ingres, Rome, 1809.
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| Born |
Merry-Joseph Blondel 25 July 1781 Paris, France |
| Died | 12 June 1853 (aged 71) Paris, France |
| Nationality | French |
| Known for | Painting |
| Movement | Neo-Classical |
Merry-Joseph Blondel (25 July 1781 – 12 June 1853) was a French history painter of the Neoclassical school. He was a winner of the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1803. After the salon of 1824, he was bestowed with the rank of Knight in the order of the Legion d'Honneur by Charles X of France and offered a professorship at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts: a position in which he remained until his death in 1853. In 1832, he was elected to a seat at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris,
Blondel was a student of the Neoclassical master Baron Jean-Baptiste Regnault and from 1809, a lifelong friend of the painter Ingres.
For much of Blondel's painting career, he was occupied with public commissions for paintings and frescoes in important buildings, including palaces, museums and churches. Blondel completed major commissions for the Palace of Fontainebleau, the Palace of Versailles, the Louvre Museum, the Brongniart Palace (also known as the Paris Bourse), the Luxembourg Palace, and the churches of and .
Blondel's 1814 painting La Circassienne au Bain became infamous during the early part of the 20th century for being the subject of the largest claim for financial compensation made against the White Star line, for a single item of luggage lost by a passenger on the RMS Titanic.
Merry-Joseph was born on 25 July 1781 to Joseph-Armand Blondel (1740-1805), a painter and expert in stucco decoration, and his second wife Marie Marchand (died 1819). Merry-Joseph had two brothers and a sister, including Charles-Francois Armand Blondel, an architect. Several generations of the Blondel family had become associated with architecture and the design and decoration of buildings. Blondel's great uncle, (1705-1774) wrote a treatise on the subject and opened the first dedicated school of architecture in Paris.
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