Prosper Dunant

Prosper Dunant is a Architecte French born with Lathuile in 1790 and died with Annecy in 1878.

This architect is the founder of what one can call the school of Annecy in painting of landscape. He was the first to draw and paint all the picturesque sites of the lake, preceded in that by the “pioneers” by the first school by Geneva who made around the lake some incursions. It is an excellent painter in watercolours, it also carried out many oils on fabrics or paper. He works as well in workshop as on the reason. Born the August 29th 1790 with Lathuile in the south from the lake, Dunant has as of its more young age access to the material of drawing of his/her father, architect and principal driver of the Bridges and Chaussées.

Of 1805 with 1811 he was the pupil of Pierre-Emmanuel Moreau (1766 - 1833). Raise in architecture in Paris of 1812 with 1816, it is presented by the painter Éléonor Mérimée (1757 - 1836) to Jean-Joseph-Xavier Bidauld (1758 - 1846), one of the best painters of French landscape of these years, which opens its workshop to him and lavishes useful councils to him. In testimony of its affection Bidauld gives to the Annécien young person some his landscapes painted according to nature. He also likes to copy the fabrics of the Masters of the Louvre. It is in the capital that, as of 1812, it binds friendship with Johann Görbitz (1782 - 1853), Norwegian painter. 1816 with 1846 the two painters maintain a correspondence provided on the evolution arts to Paris and the topicality of the Living room. On its return in Savoy, he works in the paternal workshop with projects of architecture and decoration in particular to the triumphal arches intended for the royal ceremonies of the House of Savoy.

Of 1817 with 1820, it undertakes under the aegis of Doctor Charles-Humbert Despine, director of the Thermal baths of Aix, the realization of a series of twelve sights of the surroundings of the lake of Le Bourget “intended the abroads”. Despine orders to him a “project of improvement of the royal establishment of the Baths of Aix-in-Savoy”. In 1819 his/her son Camille Dunant (1819 - 1909) arrives at the world in the landscape of which he will be the untiring promoter by creating the Tourist office.

It is on the councils of Görbitz which Dunant makes knowledge of the Genevese painter Adam-Wolfgang Töpffer (1746 - 1847) that it accompanies at the time of “campaigns of painting” or “races of landscapes” around Annecy in the years 1820. Not very inclined to want to shine in the living rooms, it exposes time to other in Geneva at the Company of Arts at the instigation of his/her friend James Audéoud (1793 - 1857) president of the Class of the Art schools of the Company of Arts.

First of the kind, the edition financed by Charles-Humbert Despine of an album of 6 lithographies on the surroundings of the Annecy Lake appears in 1824. Dunant likes to carry out picturesque tours in the valleys of Savoy and to bring back of them impressions and sketches as in 1822 in the Faucigny or in 1829 at the time of its voyage in Piedmont and Ligurie. He also appreciates to break provincial quietude by some Parisian stays where he meets a great number of painters. He discusses several times on the evolution arts with Horace Vernet (1789 - 1863). In 1854, it Marie her daughter Clotilde, itself painter, with Firmin Salabert, gifted portraitist. In order to fix for the posterity in their integrity the most picturesque places that he knew, Dunant attempted to carry out series of watercolours according to older drawings like Annecy and its surroundings, the Castles of Savoy or Grenoble (the Grenoble-native watercolours were lost). The painter annecian dies in 1878 by leaving in his workshop several hundreds of tables or drawings, testimony of the artistic passion which it tested for landscapes that we still know in spite of the disastrous transformation of the urban landscape annecian. Dunant had several pupils to whom it gave lessons and councils for the simple pleasure of transmitting his knowledge. His/her children were the first has to profit from its experiment. Paul Cabaud, Jean-Baptiste Berthet future professor of drawing in Annecy, Charlotte Séchaud, married to certain Mr. Rochette, niece of the owner of the castle of Duingt. It forms it with delicate art to represent nature, art for which it declares with his friends that she has the best provisions.

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