Charles Othon Frédéric Jean-Baptiste, Comte de Clarac (24 June 1777,

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

– 20 January 1847,

) was a French artist, scholar and archaeologist. He published a catalogue of the Musée du Louvre, and a ''Manuel de l'Histoire de l'art'' and also that which is considered his best work: the ''Musée de sculpture antique et moderne'', 1826–1852, completed after his death. Having served for some time in the army of prince Conde, and afterward entered a Russian regiment. After that he returned to France, and then to Naples in 1808. During his stay there he superintended the excavations at Pompeii, the results of which he described in his book, ''Fouilles Faites a Pompei.'' He soon left Italy and followed the duke of

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in his embassy to Brazil. On his return to Paris he was appointed successor to Visconti as keeper of the ''Musee des Antiques.''

Life

Emigrating on the

Revolution In political science, a revolution (, 'a turn around') is a rapid, fundamental transformation of a society's class, state, ethnic or religious structures. According to sociologist Jack Goldstone, all revolutions contain "a common set of elements ...

, he travelled round Europe, finding success in drawing and archaeology. He became tutor to the children of

Joachim Murat Joachim Murat ( , also ; ; ; 25 March 1767 – 13 October 1815) was a French Army officer and statesman who served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Under the French Empire he received the military titles of Marshal of the ...

, king of Naples, and was charged by Murat with showing them round the ruins of

Pompeii Pompeii ( ; ) was a city in what is now the municipality of Pompei, near Naples, in the Campania region of Italy. Along with Herculaneum, Stabiae, and Villa Boscoreale, many surrounding villas, the city was buried under of volcanic ash and p ...

. He returned to France under the

Consulate A consulate is the office of a consul. A type of mission, it is usually subordinate to the state's main representation in the capital of that foreign country (host state), usually an embassy (or, only between two Commonwealth countries, a ...

, and was made conservator of antiquities at the Louvre in 1818. In 1838 he was admitted to the

Académie des Beaux-Arts The (; ) is a French learned society based in Paris. It is one of the five academies of the . The current president of the academy (2021) is Alain-Charles Perrot, a French architect. Background The academy was created in 1816 in Paris as a me ...

as a free member. Highly talented at drawing, he accompanied the diplomatic mission of the Duke of Luxemburg, extraordinary ambassador to king

Louis XVIII Louis XVIII (Louis Stanislas Xavier; 17 November 1755 – 16 September 1824), known as the Desired (), was King of France from 1814 to 1824, except for a brief interruption during the Hundred Days in 1815. Before his reign, he spent 23 y ...

, to Brazil. On the shores of the Paraîbo do Sul, in the woods of Rio Bonito to the north of

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro, or simply Rio, is the capital of the Rio de Janeiro (state), state of Rio de Janeiro. It is the List of cities in Brazil by population, second-most-populous city in Brazil (after São Paulo) and the Largest cities in the America ...

, he made several signed '' croquis'', and once he was back in Europe worked them up into a large watercolour of the untouched and primitive forest interior of Brazil. The resulting work (also the result of minute study of tropical plants cultivated in the greenhouses of prince Maximilien zu Wied's château), ''Forêt vierge du Brésil'', was shown at the Salon of 1819. From its vegetal profusion emanates an organic luxuriance which several photographers later tried to emulate and reproduce. The famous naturalist

Alexander von Humboldt Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (14 September 1769 – 6 May 1859) was a German polymath, geographer, natural history, naturalist, List of explorers, explorer, and proponent of Romanticism, Romantic philosophy and Romanticism ...

, who had in his "Essay on the Geography of Plants" demanded that artists go to the New World and paint the richness of its vegetation, bought the work due to "its organic sense of the detail emanating from the totality of nature". It was acquired by the Louvre's "département des Arts graphiques" in 2004, and in 2005 a special exhibition was centred on it.

Works

Besides a ''Catalogue du musée du Louvre'' and a ''Manuel de l'histoire de l'art'', 1847, 3 volumes in-12, he wrote ''Musée de sculpture antique et moderne'', 1826–1855, 6 volumes in-8, with plates in-4, a magnficient publication which used up his fortune and which he was unable to finish before his death.

Sources

*"Charles Othon Frédéric Jean-Baptiste de Clarac", in Marie-Nicolas Bouillet and Alexis Chassang (dir.), Dictionnaire universel d'histoire et de géographie, 1878
Forêt vierge du Brésil
- Louvre catalogue

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Clarac, Charles Othon Frederic Jean-Baptiste De 1777 births 1847 deaths French draughtsmen French archaeologists French curators French classical scholars French art historians 19th-century French naturalists French botanical illustrators Counts of France Botanists active in South America Natural history of Brazil French male non-fiction writers