François Flameng

François Léopold Flameng
Born	(1856-12-06)December 6, 1856 Paris
Died	Paris
Nationality	France
Known for	Painting
Spouse(s)	Marguerite Henriette Augusta Turquet

François Flameng (1856–1923) was a very successful French painter during the last quarter of the 19th century and the first quarter of the 20th. He was the son of a celebrated engraver and received a first-rate education in his craft. Flameng initially received renown for his history painting and portraiture, and became a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts. He decorated such important civic buildings as the Sorbonne and the Opera Comique, and also produced advertising work. Flameng was granted France's highest civilian honor, the Legion d'Honneur, and designed France's first bank notes.

Works

Flameng's portraits include:

• Family Portrait of a Boy and His Two Sisters
• Fashionable Beauty
• Portrait of a Girl Holding Her Two Toy Elephants
• Portrait of Auguste Rodin
• Two portraits of Princess Zinaida Yusupova in Arkhangelskoye
• Portrait of Elsie Salomon Duveen, wife of the art dealer Joseph Duveen, an oval in the Ferens Art Gallery, Kingston-upon-Hull.
• Portrait of Queen Alexandra, consort of King Edward VII, full-length seated, in the White Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace.

Princess Zinaida Yusupova with children, 1894

François Flameng at his Studio

Flameng's history painting included:

• The Carnival, Venice
• Court Ladies Bathing in the 18th century
• Molière Demanding an Audience With King Louis XIV at Versailles
• Napoléon Studying Military History
• Reception at Malmaison, 1802

Flameng later received renown for his painting of World War I. He was named honorary president of the Society of Military Painters and an accredited documenter for the War Ministry. His work was displayed in the Hôtel des Invalides in Paris, as well as being reproduced in newsmagazines. Although his paintings seem romantic to eyes which have seen photographs of genocide and nuclear war, at the time they were painted, Flameng's war paintings were derided by many critics for being too realistic and not including heroic drama. Most of his war paintings were donated to the Musée de l'Armée in 1920. They include:

• A Machine Gun Company of Chasseurs Alpins in the Barren Winter Landscape of the Vosges
• The Battle of the Yser in 1914
• The Donkey, Somme, 1916
• The Forgotten Front
• Heavy Artillery on the Railway, October 1916

In 1919 he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Honorary Corresponding Academician.

Marriage, family and friends

Flameng married Marguerite Henriette Augusta Turquet (1863–?) at Neuilly-sur-Seine on November 30, 1881. Their daughter Marie married the tennis star Max Decugis, who Flameng also painted.

François Flameng was a friend of John Singer Sargent, who painted his portrait, he also traveled with Jean-Léon Gérôme and Victor Clairin in Italy, and tutored Paul-Émile Bécat.

Gallery

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  The Massacre of Machecoul (1884)

• 

  Court Ladies Bathing in the 18th Century (1888)

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  Jean Grolier in the House of Aldus Manutius (1894)

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  "A Machine Gun Company of Chasseurs Alpins in the Barren Winter Landscape of the Vosges"

External links

• The Landscapes of War - page with a gallery of war paintings of François Flameng
• A French Artist at War - another page with a gallery of war paintings of François Flameng