Louis Dupré (;

Versailles The Palace of Versailles ( ; ) is a former royal residence commissioned by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, Yvelines, Versailles, about west of Paris, in the Yvelines, Yvelines Department of Île-de-France, Île-de-France region in Franc ...

, 9 January 1789 –

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 ...

, 12 October 1837) was a French

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

, lithographer, and travel writer, especially noted for his travels in

Albania Albania ( ; or ), officially the Republic of Albania (), is a country in Southeast Europe. It is located in the Balkans, on the Adriatic Sea, Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea, and shares land borders with Montenegro to ...

Armenia Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of West Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia (country), Georgia to the north and Azerbaijan to ...

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

, and other regions within the Ottoman Empire, and for his numerous paintings with Orientalist and Philhellene themes. He travelled and worked primarily in Greece on the very eve of the

Greek War of Independence The Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution or the Greek Revolution of 1821, was a successful war of independence by Greek revolutionaries against the Ottoman Empire between 1821 and 1829. In 1826, the Greeks were assisted ...

(1821–1832).

Biography

Louis Dupré had been a student of the Neoclassical French painter

Jacques-Louis David Jacques-Louis David (; 30 August 1748 – 29 December 1825) was a French painter in the Neoclassicism, Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era. In the 1780s, his cerebral brand of history painting marked a change in ...

and had later worked as a painter for Jérôme Bonaparte, receiving commissions from the French court. Dupré had studied painting in

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

and had also received commissions during his travels there. He travelled to

Ottoman Greece The vast majority of the territory of present-day Greece was at some point incorporated within the Ottoman Empire. The period of Ottoman rule in Greece, lasting from the mid-15th century until the successful Greek War of Independence broke out ...

, during a time when the country's ancient ideals and Hellenistic culture had experienced a revival among the Greek population. It also represented a concerning time for the Ottoman Empire, in terms of keeping their territorial regions under control. His visit to Greece was on the very eve of the

(1821–1832), which led to the Greek victory and establishment of the First Hellenic Republic (1822–1832) and its

successor state Succession of states is a concept in international relations regarding a successor state that has become a sovereign state over a territory (and populace) that was previously under the sovereignty of another state. The theory has its roots in 19th ...

, the

Kingdom of Greece The Kingdom of Greece (, Romanization, romanized: ''Vasíleion tis Elládos'', pronounced ) was the Greece, Greek Nation state, nation-state established in 1832 and was the successor state to the First Hellenic Republic. It was internationally ...

(1832–1924). He often traveled and changed his work location, including

Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in North Hesse, northern Hesse, in Central Germany (geography), central Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel (region), Kassel and the d ...

(1811–1814),

Naples Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...

(1814–1816),

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

(1816–1819, 1824–1831),

(1819–1820),

Constantinople Constantinople (#Names of Constantinople, see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman Empire, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Byzantine, Latin Empire, Latin, and Ottoman Empire, Ottoman empire ...

(c. 1820),

(1820–1837), and

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

(1820–1824).

Travel book

Dupré visited

in 1819, while it was still a region within the Ottoman Empire, and recorded his time there with drawings and descriptions of the people from the different levels of society. His travel book, named ''Voyage à Athènes et à Constantinople'', was produced a few years later after his travels, in 1825. It was written in French and published in the Restored Kingdom of France, after Greece had begun its revolution for independence and rebelled against the Ottoman Empire. His travel book consists of forty illustrations accompanied by fifty-two pages of text.

Gallery

File:Dupre-Salona-1821.jpg, Dupré's depiction of Nikolakis Mitropoulos raising his flag at

Salona Salona (, ) was an ancient city and the capital of the Roman province of Dalmatia and near to Split, in Croatia. It was one of the largest cities of the late Roman empire with 60,000 inhabitants. It was the last residence of the final western ...

; a scene from the early stages of the

in 1821. File:Dupré - Ali Pasha - 1819.jpg, A hand-coloured lithograph by Louis Dupré in his travel book, ''Voyage à Athènes et à Constantinople'', plate VII. Depicted here is Ali Pasha, Albanian ruler of the Pashalik of Yanina. File:Souliotis in Corfu.jpg, A hand-coloured lithograph by Louis Dupré in his travel book, ''Voyage à Athènes et à Constantinople'', 1820s. Depicted here is a Souliote warrior of the Greek Legion in

Corfu Corfu ( , ) or Kerkyra (, ) is a Greece, Greek island in the Ionian Sea, of the Ionian Islands; including its Greek islands, small satellite islands, it forms the margin of Greece's northwestern frontier. The island is part of the Corfu (regio ...

. File:Dupre - Vasilis Goudas.jpg, '' Vasilis Goudas, adjutant of Markos Botsaris''. A hand-coloured lithograph by Louis Dupré in his travel book, ''Voyage à Athènes et à Constantinople'', 1820s. File:Louis-Dupre-Pacha.jpg, A hand-coloured lithograph by Louis Dupré in his travel book, ''Voyage à Athènes et à Constantinople''. Depicted here is the

Prince of Moldavia This is a list of monarchs of Moldavia, from the first mention of the medieval polity east of the Carpathians and until its disestablishment in 1862, when it united with Wallachia, the other Danubian Principality, to form the modern-day state of ...

, Michael Soutzos. File:Un Prêtre Grec et un Turc - Louis Dupré.jpg, A hand-coloured lithograph by Louis Dupré in his travel book, ''Voyage à Athènes et à Constantinople''. Depicted here are a Greek Orthodox priest (left) and a Turk (right). File:Armenian and his wife.jpg, A hand-coloured lithograph by Louis Dupré in his travel book, ''Voyage à Athènes et à Constantinople''. Depicted here are an Armenian prince and his Turkish wife.

Bibliography

Elisabeth A. Fraser, "Skin of Nation, Body of Empire: Louis Dupré in Ottoman Greece," i
''Mediterranean Encounters: Artists Between Europe and the Ottoman Empire, 1774–1839''
Penn State University Press, 2017.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dupre, Louis 1789 births 1837 deaths 19th-century French lithographers 19th-century French male artists 19th-century French male writers 19th-century French painters 19th-century travel writers Artists from Versailles Painters from Île-de-France French expatriates in Germany French expatriates in Italy French expatriates in the Ottoman Empire French male non-fiction writers French male painters French philhellenes in the Greek War of Independence French travel writers French war artists French Orientalist painters People of the Bourbon Restoration People of the First French Empire Writers from Versailles