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Bernard-Édouard Swebach

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Imperial French Soldiers
The Retreat from Russia

Bernard-Édouard Swebach (21 August 1800, Paris - 2 March 1870, Versailles) was a French painter and lithographer. He was known for his genre and historical scenes; usually featuring horses.

Biography

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His father, Jacques François Joseph Swebach-Desfontaines, was a painter and porcelain designer. From 1814, he trained at the École des Beaux-Arts while assisting in his father's workshop.

Following the abdication of Napoleon, he went with his father to St.Petersburg, where Tsar Alexander I had invited him to direct the Imperial Porcelain Factory.[1]

In 1820, after their return to Paris, they established a joint workshop and produced what they called "four-handed paintings".[1]

He began exhibiting at the Salon under his own name in 1822, with a scene depicting the Hussars using a warehouse for a stable. He was praised for his technical abilities, but criticized for not having a style of his own.[1] After his father died the following year, he slowly developed his own style, based on British Romanticism. After 1838, he devoted himself primarily to lithography. A large collection of his works in that medium are kept at the Carnavalet Museum.[2]

Many of his early and transitional paintings are difficult to attribute accurately, as both he and his father signed their works with "Swebach", or not at all.[2]

References

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  1. ^ a b c Brief biography @ the Galerie La nouvelle Athènes
  2. ^ a b Biography and appreciation @ Mr. Expert
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Media related to Bernard-Édouard Swebach at Wikimedia Commons