Self-portrait on glass Window Charles-Laurent Maréchal (27 January 1801 – 17 January 1887) was a French painter.

Biography

Maréchal was born of poor parents at

Metz Metz ( , , lat, Divodurum Mediomatricorum, then ) is a city in northeast France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers. Metz is the prefecture of the Moselle department and the seat of the parliament of the Grand ...

in 1801.Maréchal o
geneanet.org
/ref> He was brought up as a saddler, but his bent for art took him early to Paris, where during several years he was a pupil of

Jean-Baptiste Regnault Jean-Baptiste Regnault (9 October 1754 – 12 November 1829) was a French painter. Biography Regnault was born in Paris, and began life at sea in a merchant vessel. At the age of fifteen his talent attracted attention, and he was sent to ...

. In 1825, he returned to Metz, and in the following year exhibited at the Exposition of the Department of the

Moselle The Moselle ( , ; german: Mosel ; lb, Musel ) is a river that rises in the Vosges mountains and flows through north-eastern France and Luxembourg to western Germany. It is a left bank tributary of the Rhine, which it joins at Koblenz. A ...

, a picture of 'Job,' which procured him the first-class silver medal. In 1831, on the visit of King

Louis Philippe I Louis Philippe (6 October 1773 – 26 August 1850) was King of the French from 1830 to 1848, and the penultimate monarch of France. As Louis Philippe, Duke of Chartres, he distinguished himself commanding troops during the Revolutionary Wa ...

, he presented to that sovereign a picture of his painting entitled 'Prayer', which obtained honourable mention at the salon of the current year. Amongst his remaining paintings in oil are 'Masaccio as a boy,' 'The Harvest,' and the ' Apotheosis of St. Catherine' painted in 1842 for the

Metz Cathedral Metz Cathedral, otherwise the Cathedral of Saint Stephen, Metz (french: Cathédrale Saint Étienne de Metz), is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Metz, capital of Lorraine, France. It is dedicated to Saint Stephen. First begun in the early 14th centu ...

. He, however, eventually abandoned oil, as a vehicle, in favour of pastel, as being better adapted to his free and sketchy style. In this medium he produced a vast number of subjects of the Bohemian type, as the 'Sisters of Misery,' 'Hungarian Woodcutters' (1840), 'La Petite Gitana' (1841), 'Leisure,' 'Distress,' 'The Adepts,' &c., for which he received successively medals of the third, second, and first class. But more important than all these labours was the new industry which he was enabled to establish in his native town in glass painting. His productions in this line, exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851, obtained for him a medal of the first class; and the two vast hemicycles, which he executed for the Palace of Industry of Paris in 1855, obtained for him the grade of officer of the

Legion of Honour The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleo ...

, he having received the first decoration in 1846. Charles-Laurent Maréchal has since decorated with painted windows a great number of the principal churches in France, Notre-Dame being the most famous; at Paris, St. Vincent de Paul, St. Clotilda, St. Valere; the cathedrals of Troyes, Metz, Cambray, Limoges, and parish churches too numerous to mention. Charles-Laurent Maréchal died in

Bar-le-Duc Bar-le-Duc (), formerly known as Bar, is a commune in the Meuse département, of which it is the capital. The department is in Grand Est in northeastern France. The lower, more modern and busier part of the town extends along a narrow valley, ...

in 1887. His son, Charles-Raphaël Maréchal (1818 Metz -1886 Paris), was a clever painter of genre. His ' Simoom,' 'Halt at Evening, and ' The Shipwrecked,' were exhibited in 1853 and 1857.

References

: * {{DEFAULTSORT:Marechal, Charles 19th-century French painters French male painters 1801 births 1887 deaths Metz School 19th-century French male artists