1797 -1856 · Paris, Salon and theater of history

Tragic suspense, precision of costumes and theatrical staging make Paul Delaroche the great popular painter of history in the 19th century.

Paul Delaroche was born in Paris in 1797 and died there in 1856. Trained with the landscaper Louis-Étienne Watelet then the history painter Antoine-Jean Gros, he exhibited at the Salon from 1822. He quickly found a path between the neoclassical finish of Ingres and the romantic taste for emotion, drama and broken destinies. His large paintings often choose the moment before or after a catastrophe: imprisonment, execution, martyrdom or political fall. His large paintings often choose the moment which precedes or follows a catastrophe: imprisonment, execution, martyrdom or political fall. The Execution of Lady Jane Gray often creates a sensation at the Salon of 1834 and establishes a staging close to the theater, where costume, light and gesture make the past immediately accessible. Delaroche also paints portraits and religious subjects. The Young Martyr, produced in 1854 -1855, shows a drowned Christian woman floating on the water, her hands tied and her halo luminous. The silence of the nocturnal landscape transforms the story into an image of compassion. The Descent from the Cross, The Temptation of Saint Anthony and The Virgin and Child demonstrate a lasting interest in spirituality, treated with the same precise finish and the same emotional readability. An influential professor, Delaroche also trains numerous European painters in his Parisian studio. The "Paul Delaroche" selection notably compares Descent from the Cross and The Young Martyr. His reading favors composition.

Delaroche suspends the story at the decisive moment: the light isolates the gesture, the costume makes the past tangible and the silence announces the drama.