Eugène Dutuit (7 April 1807 – 25 June 1886) was a French politician and art collector who also wrote several works on art history.
Dutuit was born in
Marseille
Marseille (; ; see #Name, below) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Bouches-du-Rhône and of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region. Situated in the ...
as the son of a cotton merchant, but grew up in
Rouen
Rouen (, ; or ) is a city on the River Seine, in northwestern France. It is in the prefecture of Regions of France, region of Normandy (administrative region), Normandy and the Departments of France, department of Seine-Maritime. Formerly one ...
, where he studied law and lived most of his life. He traveled to the Netherlands in 1826 where he visited museums and began collecting prints, six hundred of which he later donated in 1845 to the library of Rouen. He was elected member of the Academy of Sciences, Literature and Arts of Rouen in 1846 and became deputy mayor there from 1846 to 1874. In 1852 he and his brother Auguste and sister Heloise inherited their father's fortune.
[Rouen history]
website
He moved to Brighton in the Prussian invasion of 1870–71, which allowed him to make art contacts in England, especially in the
Burlington Fine Arts Club
The Burlington Fine Arts Club (established 1866; dissolved 1952) was a London gentlemen's club based at 17 Savile Row.
The club had its roots in the informal Fine Arts Club, a gathering of amateur art enthusiasts, founded by John Charles Robin ...
of London. He signed in 1877 with the publisher A. Levy for publishing his ''L'Amateur Manual D'Estampes'', a dictionary of prints, and also for a
catalogue raisonné
A (or critical catalogue) is an annotated listing of the works of an artist or group of artists and can contain all works or a selection of works categorised by different parameters such as medium or period.
A ''catalogue raisonné'' is normal ...
of
Rembrandt
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (; ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), mononymously known as Rembrandt was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker, and Drawing, draughtsman. He is generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in ...
. Though both brothers worked on the collection, it was Auguste who actually wrote the works that were published. At the end of his life Eugène wanted to make the local Hotel de Bourgtheroulde in Rouen into a museum housing the collection, but this was not finalized before his death there where today a street bears his name.
[
On the death of his brother Auguste Jean-Baptiste in 1902, who had been living in Rome, their collection of works of art was surprisingly bequeathed to the City of Paris rather than Rouen.][ Their collection formed the backbone of the young ]Petit Palais
The (; ) is an art museum in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France.
Built for the Exposition Universelle (1900), 1900 Exposition Universelle ("universal exhibition"), it now houses the City of Paris Museum of Fine Arts (''Musée des beaux-arts ...
. A condition of the bequest is the perpetual care of the grave of Duclos-Dutuit family in Père Lachaise cemetery. Auguste's name lives on today in his attribution of Persian vases to the '' Dutuit Painter''.
References
The brothers Dutuit
in the Institut national d'histoire de l'art (INHA)
1807 births
1886 deaths
Politicians from Rouen
French art historians
French male writers
Rembrandt scholars
{{France-art-historian-stub