Ignace Schott de Dabo (July 28, 1818 – March 3, 1883) generally known by the name Ignace Schott, he was a French born artist, etcher and teacher.
Born in
Dabo, located in the
Lorraine
Lorraine , also , , ; Lorrain: ''Louréne''; Lorraine Franconian: ''Lottringe''; german: Lothringen ; lb, Loutrengen; nl, Lotharingen is a cultural and historical region in Northeastern France, now located in the administrative region of G ...
region of France, he was a successful ecclesiastic decorator. He worked mostly as a mural painter but also in stained glass and many of his creations have survived to this day. Much of his work from the mid 19th century was created in and around
Saverne
Saverne (french: Saverne, ; Alsatian: ; german: Zabern ) is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Grand Est in north-eastern France. It is situated on the Rhine-Marne canal at the foot of a pass over the Vosges Mountains, and 45 km ( ...
, France not far from Dabo, but the last thirteen years of his life and career Ignace worked in the
Detroit
Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...
,
Michigan
Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...
area of the United States. He is perhaps best known as the father of the
tonalist painters
Leon Dabo
Leon Dabo (July 9, 1864 – November 7, 1960) was an Americans, American tonalism, tonalist landscape artist best known for his paintings of New York, particularly the Hudson Valley. His paintings were known for their feeling of spaciousness, wi ...
and
Theodore Scott-Dabo
Theodore Scott-Dabo (November 16, 1865 - November 17, 1928) casually known as Scott Dabo, was a French/American tonalist landscape artist thought to be from Detroit, Michigan but is now known to have been born in Saverne, France. Active both in ...
.
Life
None of his personal records are known to exist, thus little of Ignace's early life or artistic training is more than conjecture. Yet there are a few clues. One obituary stated that he was a pupil of Paul Delaroche.
[Boston Evening Transcript (July 18, 1883) pg. 1 col. 4] His eldest son Leon, also an artist who wrote and lectured on art, stated in an article on religious art that in "Detroit there was a talented Frenchman, Ignace Schott, who was a pupil of Delacroix." Leon also mentioned in some correspondence that his father was a "fellow student of J. M. Whistler's at Gleyre's studio." In a magazine article on stained glass, Leon wrote that Friederichs and Staffin of Detroit had a French designer in the 1870s (Leon's father) who had been trained by Champigneulle. These few hints do fit the timeline of when Ignace would have been studying at the beginning his career.
Much of Ignace's known works are ecclesiastic murals. One of Ignace's first teachers,
Eugène Delacroix
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix ( , ; 26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school.Noon, Patrick, et al., ''Crossing the Channel: British ...
worked for many years in Paris on a number of mural commissions beginning in 1833. Ignace would have been fifteen years old then, an appropriate time for an apprenticeship. Paul Delaroche taught painting in Paris until 1843, and the Swiss painter
Charles Gleyre
Marc Gabriel Charles Gleyre (2 May 1806 – 5 May 1874), was a Swiss artist who was a resident in France from an early age. He took over the studio of Paul Delaroche in 1843 and taught a number of younger artists who became prominent, including He ...
took over Delaroche's studio and opened it to students twice a week for instruction. It is known that by 1846 Ignace was in Saverne and worked fairly extensively in the area through to 1869, he executed several works for the religious community there. The General Inventory of Cultural Heritage for Alsace lists a number of signed works on the walls of Saint Léger Church in Reinhardsmunster, Saint Gall Church in Siltzheim, Saint Florent Church in Weislingen, as well as a convent and bishop's residence near Saverne.
A professor in Saverne from 1849 to 1869, Ignace seems to have also been a professor of aesthetics in
Nancy at some point during these two decades.
["Signature on Glass: Discovering the Life and Art of Ignace Schott", Michigan History Magazine (Mar/Apr 1995) p. 50] In the late 1850s
Ernest Delannoy and
James McNeill Whistler
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (; July 10, 1834July 17, 1903) was an American painter active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral allusion in painting and was a leading p ...
traveled through
Alsace-Lorraine, their friend of Dabo joined them on a few sketching excursions. It is possible that it was Ignace's workshop in Saverne where Whistler made some of the first etchings for ''The French Set''.
In the 1860s
Charles-François Champigneulle worked in stained glass and had his workshop in Metz, just north of Nancy and west of Dabo and Saverne, Ignace was in the right time and place to assist with Champigneulle's work restoring church windows that had been damaged during the revolution.
Ignace's relatives from Nancy, the writer, literary and art critic team of
Edmond and
Jules de Goncourt made their home in Paris, which naturally allowed Ignace access to such literary figures on the liberal Republican left as
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the great ...
and
Jules Valles. Through his association with people like Hugo and Valles, then of course his connection to the politically liberal Gleyre, Ignace became very involved in the political arena. The university setting within which he had begun to work may have also stimulated his political activism. Ignace's son Leon would later write "my father founded with Jules Valles a republican newspaper secretly, and was in other ways obnoxious to the Emperor."
An obituary of Ignace in the ''Boston Evening Transcript'', states that he was "made a life sentence by Louis Napoleon."
It is probably due to his association with people like Valles, whom the government of
Napoleon III
Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A neph ...
imprisoned twice for press violations by 1868, that he began to feel uneasy with continuing to live in the politically tense France. During the early 1860s Ignace had married a young woman, Madeleine Oberle. Their first child, Leon, was born in 1864, Theodore followed the next year and their first daughter, Leontine came in 1867, and by 1868 Madeleine was pregnant once again. Escaping the political unrest of the Franco-Prussian War, Ignace and his young family fled to America, arriving in New York City on January 5, 1870.
[S.S. Silesia Ship Manifest (January 5, 1870) p. 2] Trying to assimilate more easily the Schott family went first to French-speaking Canada, but by June 1870 they had settled in Detroit, Michigan with its large French community.
Most often known as Ignatius Schott in America, he continued to work as an ecclesiastic decorative artist. Some of his work can still be seen at
St. Anne's Church,
Most Holy Trinity Church Most Holy Trinity Church or Church of the Most Holy Trinity may refer to:
Croatia
* Church of the Most Holy Trinity, Sveta Nedelja
India
* Holy Trinity Church, Powai, also called Most Holy Trinity Church
Italy
* Santissima Trinità de ...
and
St. Joseph's Church in Detroit, St. Alphonsus in Windsor, Ontario and St. Boniface of All Saints Parish in New Riegel, Ohio. Numerous mentions were made in the 1870s and early 1880s Michigan newspapers of the work being created by Mr. Schott. The murals at
St. Mary of Good Counsel in Adrian, Michigan was one of Ignace's first commissions in America. Then there was the scene from Hamlet he painted in 1875 on a "ten by twenty-eight canvas framed in an ornate cornice over the proscenium arch" at Whitney's Opera House. He did two large canvases for the sanctuary at St. Vincent de Paul's church, one being a depiction of the Holy Family the other was the death of St. Joseph, both paintings were completed for the reopening of the church at the Easter celebration in 1880. Later that same year Schott executed work at Holy Cross Church in Marine City and he or his eldest son painted the Stations of the Cross for St. Stanislaus Kostka church in Bay City. Most if not all of these works have since been either removed or destroyed.
Ignace was also employed for many years by the stained glass firm of Friederichs and Staffin,
later known as the
Detroit Stained Glass Works
Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...
. There he created works like the imposing window ''The Trinity and The Redemption'' that is above the main altar of Most Holy Trinity Church. Ignace did non-ecclesiastic work as well and at least two of his paintings were in the private collection of Detroit architect
Gordon W. Lloyd, the ''Alsatian Girl'' and ''Hebe'', after
Ary Scheffer. Early in 1876, Mr. Lloyd loaned the paintings to the Detroit Art Association for their first exhibition.
In order to keep his identity somewhat hidden, Ignace would invariably alter the spelling of his name. Not only would he and his family use Ignace, but also Ignatius, Ignatz, Ignaz and even Enoch and Engus.
The family's surname has appeared as Schott, Schoote, Scott, de Dabo, D. Dabbo, Schott-Dabo, and Scott-Dabo. However, most of his work is either signed Ignace Schott or marked with his
monogram
A monogram is a motif made by overlapping or combining two or more letters or other graphemes to form one symbol. Monograms are often made by combining the initials of an individual or a company, used as recognizable symbols or logos. A series of ...
, an insignia made with his initials apparently forming an anchor, much the way his young friend James McNeill Whistler would come to use his butterfly.
The eldest two of Ignace and Madeleine's eight children followed their father's profession and were artists of rare talent. Leon Dabo had a long and accomplished career both in America and Europe, yet the younger of the two, Theodore Scott-Dabo, though talented left almost no legacy.
Ignace's sons received their initial artistic instruction from their father and both Leon and Theodore would also use a monogram to sign their work.
On a Sunday early in March 1883, the ''Detroit Free Press'' listed on its front page an obituary column, "Died: SCHOTT – March 3, 7p.m., Ignace Schott, artist, aged 64 years 7 months and 4 days. Funeral from his late residence Monday morning at 9:30, and from St. Anne's Church at 10 o'clock."
[Detroit Free Press (March 4, 1883) p. 1]
Notes
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schott, Ignace
1818 births
1883 deaths
19th-century French painters
French male painters
19th-century French male artists