Draft:Auguste Chauvin

Auguste Chauvin
Self-portrait, 1850 (oil on canvas; 23.5 × 18 cm), Museum of Walloon Art, Liège
Born	Auguste Adolphe Chauvin (1810-10-24)24 October 1810 Liège, France
Died	29 May 1884(1884-05-29) (aged 73) Liège, Belgium
Education	Jean Baptiste Bastiné; Kunstakademie Düsseldorf under Wilhelm von Schadow
Occupations	Painter, art teacher, museum director
Known for	History painting, religious scenes, portraits
Notable work	The Flight into Egypt (1848) Portrait of Father Henri Lacordaire (1848) The Banquet of Jupille (1861)
Awards	Vermeil medal, 1848 Brussels Salon; Knight, Order of Leopold (1861)

Auguste Adolphe Chauvin (24 October 1810 – 29 May 1884) was a Belgian painter and draughtsman. He produced religious scenes, portraits, historical and allegorical compositions, and genre scenes. In his historical works he was close to the Romantic movement, while his religious painting was strongly influenced by the Düsseldorf school.

Born in Liège, Chauvin moved with his family to Aachen in 1816. He trained initially as an architect while learning the basics of drawing and painting from Jean Baptiste Bastiné. After working as a master mason for several years, he abandoned that career in 1831 to study at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf under Wilhelm von Schadow. From 1832 to 1841 he continued his training in Düsseldorf while spending several months each year as court painter to the prince of Neuwied.

In 1841 Chauvin returned to Liège, where he was offered a teaching post at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. He became the academy's director in 1856 and also served as director of the city's painting collections. He retired in 1880. Throughout his career he worked to promote German art, particularly the Düsseldorf masters, in Belgium.

Biography

Early life and training (1810–1841)

Auguste Adolphe Chauvin was born on 24 October 1810 in Liège, then part of the French Empire. He was the eldest son of Pierre Jean Jacques Chauvin, a hat merchant, and Antoinette Piermont. The couple had several other children, including François Chauvin (born 1812), who became an officer in the German army and was ennobled after the wars of 1866 and 1870.

In 1816 the family moved to Aachen, where Auguste attended primary school, secondary school, and finally industrial school. He was soon attached to the latter institution as a substitute teacher. Around this time he began studying the principles of drawing and painting alongside Alfred Rethel under Jean Baptiste Bastiné.

He trained as an architect and for four or five years worked as a Maurermeister (master mason). The work did not suit him, and in 1831 he decided to go to Düsseldorf to study at the Academy of Fine Arts under Wilhelm von Schadow. According to an 1865 article in La Meuse, "Schadow pulled a rather doubtful face when he heard the plans laid out by this young man of twenty-one; and he forcefully objected to the difficulties of his undertaking; nevertheless, yielding to this firm and unshakeable will, he allowed him to make a trial."

Chauvin continued his training at the Düsseldorf Academy, but was obliged each year to leave the city for several months to go to Neuwied. From 1832 to 1841 he worked there as drawing master to Prince Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied and later as official court painter. There, "he later told his pupils, he painted in white gloves".

Farewell between Tobias and His Blind Father, 1836 (oil on canvas; 159 × 131.5 cm), Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf

Chauvin began his artistic career in 1836 with the canvas Farewell between Tobias and His Blind Father. In 1840 he exhibited two paintings at the Antwerp Salon, including The Châtelaine; Episode of the Falcon Hunt. "This work was so successful that soon other artists seized on the subject and reproduced it with different variations."

During his years in Düsseldorf, Chauvin formed friendships with Alfred Rethel and Christian Köhler. He also organised a trip to Belgium, serving as guide for Schadow, Köhler, and fourteen other painters of the Düsseldorf school. "This was the first important artistic journey, which created relations between Belgian and German artists, even though the latter felt themselves more drawn to the works of the old masters of Ghent, Antwerp and Bruges." He married Marie Wilhelmine Buschbeck (1819–1890), a native of Koblenz, with whom he had five sons, including the University of Liège professor and orientalist Victor Chauvin (1844–1913).

Career at the Liège Academy (1841–1880)

In 1841 Chauvin returned to Liège, where he was appointed professor of drawing at the Academy of Fine Arts. This began a long teaching career that extended from 1842 to 1880. In 1855 he was appointed director of the Academy following the death of Barthélemy Vieillevoye, and held both posts from 1856 to 1880. As professor and director he brought "an elevated spirit, a sound judgment, a sure taste, and great benevolence towards his pupils and subordinates". He was also credited with "the necessary tact to direct each person in his path" and the ability to "encourage talent appropriately and give it the opportunity to emerge".

In addition to his Academy career, Chauvin served on the governing committee of the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts from 1846 to 1857, the Provincial Monuments Commission, and the Commission for the Improvement of Drawing Instruction. In 1856 he was also named director of the city of Liège's painting collections, then housed in the Halle aux Drapiers, a function he likewise held until 1880.

A Last Meeting between the Mayors Beeckman and Laruelle, c. 1848 (oil on canvas; 275 × 207 cm), Museum of Walloon Art, Liège

Despite his multiple teaching and administrative duties, Chauvin exhibited regularly. At the 1845 Brussels Salon he showed The Death of Moses. In 1848 he sent five works to the Brussels Salon, including A Last Meeting between the Mayors Beeckman and Laruelle, which earned him a vermeil medal, his Flight into Egypt which "was so successful and was reproduced by engraving", and his Portrait of Father Henri Lacordaire. Critics were guarded, however, finding in the artist "unquestionable qualities, compressed by an excess of wisdom, of prudence" and urging him "to be bolder; let him not fear to show too much audacity". At the 1851 Brussels Salon, Chauvin exhibited the Portrait of Baron Louis de Schiervel, held at the Senate. The same year he took part in the annual exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts in London, sending three canvases including The Flight into Egypt.

Portrait of Baron Louis de Schiervel, c. 1851 (oil on canvas; 117 × 95 cm), Belgian Senate, Brussels

The artist's next exhibition did not occur until ten years later, when he showed The Banquet of Jupille at the 1861 Antwerp Salon. The absence of notable exhibitions during this period was probably linked to his increased workload at the Academy following the death of Barthélemy Vieillevoye in 1855. In 1855–56 he had been named director of the Academy (initially in an acting capacity until 1858, then permanently) and of the municipal art collections, while also serving as professor of drawing "from nature", painting, and historical composition (advanced teaching). He also continued to teach the intermediate courses in drawing "from the antique" and expression, which he had handled since 1842, until he was finally replaced in September 1859 by Charles Soubre.

The painter's return to exhibition was well received by contemporary critics, and he was made a Knight of the Order of Leopold at the close of the Salon. The Banquet of Jupille met with "such legitimate success" at the Antwerp Salon that the following year "the Senate of Berlin sent the artist a most flattering letter inviting him to exhibit" the painting in the Prussian capital, where it was also well received by the critics.

In the years that followed, Chauvin exhibited more regularly: at the London International Exhibition in 1862; at the Antwerp Salon in 1864, 1870, and 1873; at the Ghent Salon in 1871 and 1874; and finally at the 1875 Brussels Salon. Most of the works he sent were religious paintings, such as The Remorse of Cain, The Arrival of the Holy Family in Egypt, and The Education of the Virgin Mary. Nevertheless, Chauvin's artistic output had slowed—a point the periodical Le Rasoir lamented in an article of 6 April 1873: "For some time, however, the artist seems to have been absorbed by the director of the Academy; the colours are drying on his palette and his brush seems neglected. Has the sacred fire gone out and does the artist think to rest on his successes?"

Victor Lemaître, Auguste Chauvin, Director of the Academy of Fine Arts of Liège, 6 April 1873 (caricature from Le Rasoir no. 94)

In 1930 the art critic and museum curator Jules Bosmant described the artist as an "erudite and much listened-to man" who "enjoyed great prestige in Liège", a judgement already conveyed by an 1865 article in La Meuse: "His talent, his wit, his knowledge, and his activity have earned him the esteem of his fellow citizens and the confidence of the government, which often calls him to serve on commissions or charges him with missions abroad." In 1863 he was sent to Stuttgart and Munich "to report on the exhibition of graphic works from the Bavarian schools". Throughout his career he "strove to make German art, and more particularly the works of the Düsseldorf masters, known and appreciated in Belgium".

From the German side, the artist and critic Ernst Förster, quoted by Johannes Fey in 1897, considered that Chauvin "combines in the most agreeable manner German conviviality with French liveliness and lightness". The "German conviviality" was found especially in the artist's family life, while the "French liveliness and lightness" manifested more in his public activity.

Final years (1880–1884)

In 1880 Chauvin retired, his departure announced in June and made official in October, "after long and loyal service". He was also named honorary director. Even in retirement, he sent Moses on Mount Sinai to the 1880 Ghent Salon and presented three canvases at the Historical Exhibition of Belgian Art 1830–1880 in Brussels. The same year he wrote a study of Liège painters since 1830 (published in 1881), noting that an album presented to the German Empress Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach contained a drawing by his hand, and produced portraits of Joseph Lebeau (a government commission) and of Hippolyte Cornet, former mayor of Chênée.

Auguste Chauvin died in Liège on 29 May 1884 from an illness that had struck him shortly before, as Prosper Drion recalled at the funeral: "Scarcely a month ago he took to his bed, never to rise again, and yesterday, still alive in spirit, he passed away without suffering." The funeral drew "a considerable crowd", including numerous "Liège notables" as well as "the teaching staff and the students of the Academy in full force". He was buried in Robermont Cemetery.

Work

Style and technique

Portrait of Louis Jamme, 1874 (oil on canvas; 134 × 90 cm), Museum of Walloon Art, Liège

The art historian Paul Piron identifies in Auguste Chauvin a "predilection for portraits, historical and allegorical compositions, and genre scenes" and places him as "close to Romanticism". Serge Le Bailly de Tilleghem, a doctor of archaeology and art history, summarises: "Auguste Chauvin—his heroic canvases prolong nationalist Romanticism… into the last quarter of the century!" In the volume Un double regard sur 2000 ans d'art wallon, the same author briefly traces the painter's career at the Liège academy, where he "led a brilliant career marked by his historical and religious compositions, bearing the influence of his years of training in Aachen and Düsseldorf".

This closeness to Romanticism, especially in his historical compositions, is also highlighted by Jacques Goijen and by Sibylle Valcke and Gaëtane Warzée. The same authors also agree that the style of his biblical canvases is strongly influenced by the Düsseldorf school and recognise the quality of his portraits of prominent bourgeois figures and celebrities. The art historian and museum curator Jacques Hendrick considers that "his portraits, his small-format paintings, defend his memory better and are superior to his large compositions".

Liliane Sabatini, curator of the Museum of Walloon Art, drawing on a remark by the artist and art historian Guy Vandeloise, notes: "Painters of religious subjects, influenced by the Nazarenes who led a quasi-monastic life in a disused convent in Rome—Auguste Chauvin, Jules Helbig, and Victor Fassin—tried indeed to recover through science and reflection the faith and genius of bygone eras. They thus created conscientious works weighed down by the need to signify." The influence of the Romantic and Nazarene movements on the artist is also underlined by the art historian Séverine Livin in the catalogue published in 2001 for the exhibition Towards Modernity: the 19th Century in the Country of Liège.

As an 1865 article in La Meuse put it, Auguste Chauvin was one of the few Belgian artists who found in German art "the language through which they can properly express themselves, and which even becomes their true mother tongue."

Portrait of Father Henri Lacordaire (1848)

Portrait of Father Henri Lacordaire, 1848 (oil on canvas; 173 × 146 cm), Bishopric of Liège

The subject of this oil painting is Jean-Baptiste-Henri Lacordaire, the celebrated French preacher who stayed in Liège in 1847, where he gave a series of lectures at Saint Paul's Cathedral between 21 February and 20 April as part of Lent. He came with the aim of "preparing souls for Faith, because Faith is the principle of Hope and Charity".

Commemorative plaque for the lectures given by Father Henri Lacordaire in 1847 at Saint Paul's Cathedral, Liège

Lacordaire's lectures and discourses were received enthusiastically by the people of Liège, so much so that he also gave lectures at the Société libre d'émulation, where he was named an honorary member, was awarded an honorary doctorate in philosophy by the University of Liège, and subscriptions were collected to "immortalise his passage through Liège". Auguste Chauvin was chosen to produce the portrait, and he depicted the clergyman seated in a room with a window in the background showing the bell tower of Saint Paul's Cathedral.

The work was one of the five paintings the artist presented at the 1848 Brussels Salon. Although the critics of the Revue du Salon de Bruxelles praised certain aspects of the canvas—the drawing was "correct as in most of the Liège artist's compositions" and the portrait overall showed harmony—they nevertheless felt that the artist had painted a portrait of the "celebrated preacher, minus his genius", for "the high intelligence of the eloquent Dominican cannot be guessed at in the painting". The work is currently held by the Bishopric of Liège.

The Banquet of Jupille (1861)

Main article: [[:Le Banquet de Jupille]]

Also known as Saint Lambert at the Banquet of Pepin of Herstal, this monumental canvas, completed in 1861 and part of the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, is exhibited at Saint Paul's Cathedral in Liège. It was presented there on 5 September 1996 as part of the commemorations of the 13th centenary of Saint Lambert's death, after a restoration begun in April 1996.

Study for The Banquet of Jupille, 1856 (oil on canvas), Herstal, municipal museum

The work was commissioned by the Belgian state and the city of Liège from the artist, under a contract signed on 1 May 1855 stipulating that "M. Chauvin undertakes to execute a painting representing a fact drawn from the annals of the country, whose subject and dimensions shall be duly approved" and that the total price was fixed at 10,000 Belgian francs. The composition was developed from 1855 to 1861, and although Chauvin quickly determined the subject, delays in its execution were "due to the artist's illness and above all to his dual functions as director of the Academy and acting professor of the drawing-from-the-antique class". Once completed, the work was exhibited at the Antwerp Salon and in December 1861 was installed at the municipal museum of Liège, where "the College, highly satisfied, congratulated the artist".

The painting depicts the following scene: "Saint Lambert, standing, addresses Alpaïde and Pepin; the former, because by mingling her cup with those of the other guests to have it blessed, she sought to surprise the good faith of the bishop; the latter, because having Alpaïde at his side, in place of his lawful wife Plectrude, he defies the laws and the prohibition of the Church."

The Banquet of Jupille, 1861 (oil on canvas; 390 × 470 cm), Liège, Saint Paul's Cathedral

According to Philippe George and Jean-Louis Kupper, this historical composition must "be placed within a current that has expressed itself since the Belgian Revolution, that of monumental painting aimed at awakening, consolidating, and sustaining national and patriotic sentiment among the Belgian population." In a similar vein, the art historian Judith Ogonovszky-Steffens observes that monumental painting was often created for "emblematic seats of power" such as the Chamber, the Senate, palaces of justice, or city halls, and served to "legitimise the existence of the young kingdom of Belgium" and to "instil a national sentiment".

In this case, the painting references "two justificatory sources for the Belgium of 1830: the Catholic religion and the national past". Saint Lambert acts as "defender of the sacrament of marriage" and thus of Christian moral values, but he also represents "a nod to the principality era", and hence a reference to that national past. The allusion to the national past is completed by the use of "the Pippinid and Carolingian imaginary", evoked "with Pepin of 'Herstal' in his 'palace' of 'Jupille', not forgetting the young Charles Martel represented by Chauvin beside his parents."

The Journal des beaux-arts of 15 September 1861 published an enthusiastic review of the work, then exhibited at the Antwerp Salon:

The composition is irreproachable: in line, in logic, M. Chauvin has placed himself at a great height. One discerns a serious thinker beneath the artist; a man accustomed to commenting on the rules of art and to entering into the heart of what determines the study of the true and the beautiful. There is something like a breath of the great Corneille over this scene, which forms one of the most salient constitutive points of the history of Liège; one feels it in this great human storm raised by the word of St. Lambert, and the spectator submits to its secret and magical influence. Each of the characters is perfectly in the spirit of their role: terror, anger, faith, fear—all these passions and all these sentiments occupy an important place in the work, and, it must be said, it is, in this respect, one of the broadest successes we have witnessed.

— 

Twentieth-century critics were less unanimous. Jules Bosmant commented in 1930 that the painting "presents, in a deplorable colour, a gesticulation of tragic actors who pose for the lens and concern themselves more with displaying the nobility of their attitudes and the harmony of their grimaces than with the vehement truth of the sentiments they feel." Jacques Hendrick found it "of a glacial coldness of execution and sentiment".

When the restored work was presented at Saint Paul's Cathedral in 1996, Philippe George, conservator of the cathedral treasury, noted that Chauvin "took care with his setting" and "individualised each character, faithful to his speciality as a portraitist". He also observed that "an extreme dramatisation can be read in the expression of the faces and the gaze of the characters" and detected "references to older painting": for example to The Wedding at Cana or The Feast in the House of Levi by Veronese for the composition, or to Botticelli, Raphael, or Italian 16th-century Mannerism for the faces and female figures. More anecdotally, he hypothesised that "the man, just behind Saint Lambert, moustachioed and bearded, with wavy hair and a very distinctive nose, could be a self-portrait" of the painter.

Collections

Works by Auguste Chauvin are held by the Museum Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf, the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne, the Museum of Walloon Art in Liège, the Bishopric of Liège, Saint Paul's Cathedral, the Church of Notre-Dame de l'Assomption in Seraing, the Belgian Senate, the art collections of the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, and in numerous private collections.

Critical reception

During the artist's lifetime, his works were generally well received by the critics. Twentieth-century commentators were more divided. In 1930, for example, Jules Bosmant called Chauvin a "cold, emphatic, and stilted" painter and the "Monsieur Prudhomme of history painting", adding: "Solemn and morose, this pupil of the Düsseldorf Academy turned his back, all his life, on simple and vulgar nature…" He did, however, concede that the painter had "…for his excuse and that of his unfortunate fellow history painters, the difficulty of their task and the poverty of the subjects offered to their palette. Between St. Lambert (whose martyrdom Gerard de Lairesse was already painting in 1660) and Laruelle, their verve quickly exhausted itself."

Bosmant's critique was in fact directed at the entire Düsseldorf school, which "momentarily displaced the centres of attraction and direction for Liège painters", a shift that meant "our painters came to know the magnificent French realism only late, for these false models perpetuated among us a taste for the artificial picturesque and for sentimental anecdote, which the great naturalist wind blowing from the South only managed to sweep away with difficulty." For Bosmant, Chauvin was above all guilty of belonging to and promoting this school: "Now, a former pupil of Bastiné, then of Schadow, he is connected to the old Düsseldorf school. Moreover, his education, indeed his family, turned him irresistibly towards the East."

This thesis was already defended in 1921 by the author, poet, bibliophile, and patron Albert de Neuville, who observed a veritable "Düsseldorf epidemic" in the triennial salons held in Liège during the second half of the 19th century. He considered Jules Helbig and Chauvin as the principal agents of this, which, in his analysis, contaminated "the taste of many Liégeois by accustoming their eyes to a faded and dull colouring, to an atmosphere without vibration, to the pursuit of lines rather than masses, to the love of extreme complication at the expense of synthetic simplification", and above all turned "the mind away from the contemplation of painting for itself, directing it towards the study of the subject."

Jules Halkin, Bust of Auguste Chauvin, 1870 (bronze; height 74 cm), La Boverie, Liège

Guy Vandeloise noted in 1978 that "Chauvin, Helbig, and Fassin, like the history painters of the Düsseldorf School, prefer the theatrical gesture to true expression, the faded and waxy colour to the virulent and passionate touch." In 2001 the art historian David Bronze, taking up several critiques from de Neuville and Bosmant, considered that Chauvin "bears witness to an official academic art that exalts composition and technical perfection" and that he approached history painting "with considerably less fortune" than Barthélemy Vieillevoye.

In 2008 the art historians Jean-Patrick Duchesne and Isabelle Graulich argued that the various 20th-century commentators who reproached Chauvin for exercising his influence in favour of Düsseldorf school painters were doing so "not without reason but not without excess". The authors recall that Chauvin and Helbig were not solely responsible for this situation and that Charles Rogier, Minister of Public Works and Fine Arts, had "originated bursaries encouraging Belgian artists to study German monumental painting, which he himself had discovered in Munich in 1842". Moreover, "Bosmant and his continuators" tended to forget the positive effects of German influence on certain local artists, such as Gérard Buckens, Auguste Donnay, and Émile Fabry. Finally, Jean-Patrick Duchesne observes that the "supremacy" of Düsseldorf school painters during exhibitions held in Liège, if measured by the number of works acquired by the city's Museum of Fine Arts, was in reality quite limited in time: a first painting was purchased in 1838, the phenomenon peaked in 1862 (16 purchases out of a total of 36) but declined from 1864 (9 purchases out of 50) and ceased definitively after the following edition.

Gallery

• 
  The Repose of Cain, 1847 (oil on panel; 31.5 × 36 cm), private collection
• 
  Portrait of a Gentleman, 1855 (oil on canvas; 124 × 91 cm), private collection
• 
  Portrait of a Noblewoman, 1855 (oil on canvas; 124 × 91 cm), private collection
• 
  Portrait of Coraline, 1868 (oil on canvas; 91 × 68 cm), private collection
• 
  Portrait of a Woman, 1877 (oil on canvas; 62 × 55 cm), private collection

Teaching

Victor Lemaître, Review of the Exhibition, 16 July 1871 (detail from caricature, Le Rasoir no. 49)

An 1865 article in La Meuse explained that Chauvin, as a teacher, "not only sought to employ the best methods in the teaching of drawing, modelling, and painting" but also worked to "form the taste of pupils from the best models and to acquaint them with different styles." The same article noted that the professor "attaches especially great importance to scientific education", aware as he was that "science and education assure the worker as well as the artist a more honourable and more independent place in society, and at the same time a more extended field of activity."

At Chauvin's funeral, Achille Chainaye, one of his former pupils, offered this portrait of the teaching he received from his master:

M. Chauvin did not direct a school, but a workshop. He spoke to us of art as much as he made us practise it, and while he encouraged us by developing our thought, we glimpsed beyond the study the painting, the statue. Although he had taught for many years, he understood recent advances. Sometimes he would even marvel—that is the word—at a simple contour, an expressive silhouette traced by a beginner. …his penetrating, delicate nature went from Gallic jest to genuine tenderness: believe that the man who had such admirable enthusiasms was a true artist.

— 

Notable pupils

• Pierre Joseph Antoine (1840–1913)
• Émile-Édouard Berchmans (1843–1914)
• Henri Berchmans (1856–1911)
• Achille Chainaye (1862–1915)
• Émile Delperée (1850–1896)
• Jérémie Delsaux (1852–1927)
• Alphonse de Tombay (1843–1918)
• Adrien de Witte (1850–1935)
• Edgar D'Hont (1861–1941)
• Victor Fassin (1826–1906)
• Victor Lemaître (1842–1880)
• Léon Mignon (1847–1898)
• François Namur (1857–1902)
• Félix Nisen (1850–1889)
• Léon Philippet (1843–1906)
• Joseph Rulot (1853–1919)
• Henri Simon (1856–1939)
• Charles Soubre (1821–1895)
• Émile Tasset (1838–1879)
• Émile Ubaghs (1844–1879)
• Jean Ubaghs (1852–1937)

Exhibitions

During the artist's lifetime

Chauvin exhibited on several occasions in Prussia, notably in Berlin in 1836, 1838, and 1862.

• 1840: Antwerp Salon, 1 August – 15 September, rue Vénus, Antwerp (two canvases: The Châtelaine; Episode of the Falcon Hunt and Portrait of a Man).
• 1845: Brussels Salon, 15 August – 6 October, former apartments of the Palace of Charles of Lorraine, Brussels (The Death of Moses).

Reproduction of The Flight into Egypt, 1851 (41.8 × 54.5 cm), Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne

• 1848: Brussels Salon, 16 August – 2 October, former apartments of the Palace of Charles of Lorraine, Brussels (five paintings: The Prayer of Moses, The Flight into Egypt, Judas, A Last Meeting between the Mayors Beeckman and Laruelle, and Portrait of Father Henri Lacordaire).
• 1851: Brussels Salon, 15 August – 31 October, former apartments of the Palace of Charles of Lorraine, Brussels (Portrait of Baron Louis de Schiervel); The Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts, Royal Academy, London (The Holy Women, The Flight into Egypt, and The Wise Men of the East).
• 1861: Antwerp Salon, 4 August – 30 September, rue Vénus, Antwerp (The Banquet of Jupille).
• 1862: London International Exhibition, 1 May – 1 November.
• 1864: Antwerp Salon, 7 August – 2 October, rue Vénus, Antwerp (The Remorse of Cain).
• 1870: Antwerp Salon, 14 August – 2 October, rue Vénus, Antwerp (The Arrival of the Holy Family in Egypt).
• 1871: 28th National and Triennial Exhibition – Ghent Salon, 10 September – 14 November, Casino, Ghent (The Education of the Virgin Mary).
• 1873: Antwerp Salon, 10 August – 5 October, rue Vénus, Antwerp (two works: The Adoration of the Shepherd Children and The Education of the Virgin Mary).
• 1874: 29th Triennial Exhibition – Ghent Salon, 30 August – 18 October, Casino, Ghent (Young Girl at Her Toilette).
• 1875: Brussels Salon, 23 August – 15 November, Place du Petit Sablon, Brussels (Judas Iscariot).
• 1880: 31st Triennial Exhibition – Ghent Salon, 15 August – 2 November, Casino, Ghent (Moses on Mount Sinai); Artistic Circle Festival, August, Artistic and Literary Circle of Brussels (Portrait of Joseph Lebeau); Historical Exhibition of Belgian Art 1830–1880, 1 August – 31 October, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels (Judas Iscariot, A Last Meeting between the Mayors Beeckman and Laruelle, and Portrait of Louis Jamme).

Posthumous exhibitions

• 1895: Inaugural Exhibition of the Academy of Fine Arts (organised by the Royal Circle of Fine Arts for the inauguration of the new buildings of the Académie royale des beaux-arts de Liège), 15–29 July, Rue des Anglais 21, Liège.
• 2001–2002: Towards Modernity: the 19th Century in the Country of Liège, 5 October 2001 – 20 January 2002, Museum of Walloon Art and Saint-Georges Hall, Liège (four paintings: Portrait of Father Henri Lacordaire, Study for Saint Lambert at the Banquet of Jupille, Portrait of Louis Jamme, and Portrait of Frédéric Rouveroy).
• 2025–2026: 250 Years of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Liège: An Art School Across Four Centuries, 3 October 2025 – 18 January 2026, Fonds Patrimoniaux, Liège (his 1850 Self-portrait was exhibited).

Awards and distinctions

• 1848: vermeil medal at the Brussels Salon for A Last Meeting between the Mayors Beeckman and Laruelle.
• 1861: Knight of the Order of Leopold (8 October).

Bibliography

Exhibition catalogues

• Jean-Patrick Duchesne, ed. (2001). Vers la modernité: le XIXe siècle au pays de Liège (Catalogue of the exhibition at the Museum of Walloon Art and Saint-Georges Hall, Liège, 5 October 2001 – 20 January 2002) (in French). Stavelot: Imprimerie J. Chauveheid. OCLC 66405174.
  • Duchesne, Jean-Patrick (2001). "Les arts plastiques: Le cadre institutionnel". Vers la modernité. pp. 48–53.
  • Bronze, David (2001). "Les arts plastiques: La peinture, le dessin et l'estampe". Vers la modernité. pp. 54–77.
  • Bragard, Vanessa (2001). "Notices: 56. Chauvin Auguste Portrait du père Henri Lacordaire (1802–1861) (1848)". Vers la modernité. p. 319.
  • Livin, Séverine (2001b). "Notices: 57. Chauvin Auguste Étude pour Saint Lambert au banquet de Jupille (c. 1861)". Vers la modernité. pp. 319–320.
  • Willems, Martine (2001). "Notices: 641. Chauvin Auguste Portrait de Frédéric Rouveroy". Vers la modernité. p. 464.
  • Willems, Martine (2001). "Notices: 642. Rouveroy Frédéric Vocabulaire liégeois-français". Vers la modernité. pp. 464–465.
  • Livin, Séverine (2001). "Biographies: Chauvin Auguste (Liège, 1810–1884)". Vers la modernité. p. 502.

• Exposition historique de l'art belge 1830–1880: Catalogue (in French). Brussels: Imprimerie Félix Callewaert père. 1880.

• Liliane Sabatini, ed. (2000). Un double regard sur 2000 ans d'art wallon (Book accompanying the exhibition presented in various Liège institutions, 15 April – 16 July 2000). Martine Ferrante-Hollenfeltz, Françoise Lhoest, Isabelle Gérard. Tournai: La Renaissance du Livre; Crédit Communal. ISBN 978-2-8046-0376-2. OCLC 249111529.
  • Le Bailly de Tilleghem, Serge (2000). "Des peintres wallons du XIXe siècle". Un double regard sur 2000 ans d'art wallon. pp. 358–371.

• Somville, Pierre; Depouhon, Marie-Christine; Depouhon, Gilbert (1992). Le Cercle royal des Beaux Arts de Liège 1892–1992 (in French). Brussels: Crédit Communal. OCLC 35121530.

Museum catalogue

• Ville de Liège (1926). Musée des beaux-arts: catalogue (in French). Liège: Imprimerie Bénard. p. 13 (Chauvin, Auguste), no. 72 Saint Lambert au banquet de Pépin de Herstal. OCLC 27249817.

Dictionaries

• Dictionnaire des Peintres belges du XIVe siècle à nos jours (in French). Vol. 1: A–K. Brussels: La Renaissance du Livre. 1995. ISBN 2-8041-2012-0. OCLC 301497369.
  • Valcke, Sibylle; Warzée, Gaëtane (1995). "Chauvin, Auguste". Dictionnaire des peintres belges (in French). p. 171.

• Goijen, Jacques (2014). Dictionnaire des peintres de l'École liégeoise du paysage (in French). Liège: École liégeoise du paysage Éditions. p. 103. ISBN 9782960045901. OCLC 980910178.

• Müller, Hermann Alexander [in German] (1882). "Chauvin, August". Biographisches Künstler-Lexikon der Gegenwart (in German). Leipzig: Verlag des Bibliographischen Instituts. p. 102. OCLC 1068599990.

• Piron, Paul [in French] (2003–2006). Dictionnaire des artistes plasticiens de Belgique des XIXe et XXe siècles (in French). Vol. 1: A–K. Ohain-Lasne: Éditions Art in Belgium. p. 211. ISBN 2-930338-11-3. OCLC 493737398.

• Thieme, Ulrich; Becker, Felix (1912). "Chauvin, August". [[Thieme-Becker|Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart]] (in German). Vol. 6: Carlini–Cioci. Leipzig: E. A. Seemann. p. 442. OCLC 23232852. {{cite book}}: URL–wikilink conflict (help)

Studies on the artist and The Banquet of Jupille

• Folville, Marie-Luce; Folville, Hugues; Folville, Jacques (1997). "Saint Lambert au banquet de Jupille: La restauration de la toile" (PDF). Bulletin de la Société Royale Le Vieux-Liège (in French). 13 (276). Liège: 15–17 (pdf), 597–599 (publication).

• George, Philippe (1997). "Saint Lambert au banquet de Jupille: Auguste Chauvin (1810–1884) et la peinture d'histoire" (PDF). Bulletin de la Société Royale Le Vieux-Liège (in French). 13 (276). Liège: 4–13 (pdf), 586–596 (publication).

• Nor., H.; Lemaître, Victor (6 April 1873). "Auguste Chauvin" (PDF). Le Rasoir (in French). 5th year (94). Liège: 2.

Art books and articles

• Bosmant, Jules (1930). La peinture et la sculpture au pays de Liège de 1793 à nos jours (in French). Liège: Mawet éditeur. OCLC 458651068.

• Chauvin, Auguste (1881). "Les peintres liégeois depuis 1830". In Eugène M. O. Dognée (ed.). Liège: Histoire, arts, lettres, sciences, industrie, travaux publics (in French). Liège: Imp. de J. Daxhelet. pp. 234–246. OCLC 460288813.

• Delaite, Philippe; Depaire, Jean-Paul (2019). L'Académie royale des Beaux-Arts de Liège: une école d'art sur quatre siècles (in French). Liège: Éditions du Perron. ISBN 9782871142614. OCLC 1400269380.

• Duchesne, Jean-Patrick; Graulich, Isabelle (2008). "Se défaire, se refaire? La dialectique identitaire à Liège au XIXe siècle" (PDF). Art & Fact (in French) (26). Liège: 81–104. OCLC 1400242494.

• Fey, Johannes (1897). "Zur Geschichte Aachener Maler des 19. Jahrhunderts: 19. August Adolf Chauvin". Aus Aachens Vorzeit. Mitteilungen des Vereins für Kunde der Aachener Vorzeit (in German). 10th year (4–8): 76–79. OCLC 881846952.

• Kupper, Jean-Louis; George, Philippe (2006). Saint Lambert: de l'histoire à la légende (in French). Brussels: Renaissance Du Livre. ISBN 978-2-87415-637-3. OCLC 1010226932.

• Rita Lejeune; Jacques Stiennon, eds. (1978). La Wallonie. Le Pays et les Hommes. Lettres-arts-culture (in French). Vol. II: Du XVIe siècle au lendemain de la Première Guerre mondiale. Brussels: La Renaissance du Livre. OCLC 70306409.
  • Vandeloise, Guy (1978). "Livre second. De 1815 au lendemain de la première guerre mondiale; Deuxième partie: Les arts: I La peinture: néo-classicisme et romantisme". La Wallonie. Le Pays et les Hommes (PDF) (in French). pp. 498–516.

• de Neuville, Albert (1920–1921). "À propos du Salon triennal de Liège". La Vie wallonne: revue mensuelle illustrée (in French). I. Liège: Imp. G. Thone: 433–438.

• Parisse, Jacques (1975). Actuel XX: la peinture à Liège au XXe siècle (in French). Liège: Éditions Pierre Mardaga. ISBN 978-2-8021-0006-5. OCLC 419624811.
  • Hendrick, Jacques (1975). "Permanence de la peinture à Liège". Actuel XX (in French). pp. 9–15.

• Sabatini, Liliane (1988). Le Musée de l'Art wallon (in French). Brussels: Ministère de la Communauté française de Belgique et Crédit communal de Belgique. OCLC 231872025.

• Stiennon, Jacques; Duchesne, Jean-Patrick; Randaxhe, Yves (1988). De Roger de le Pasture à Paul Delvaux: cinq siècles de peinture en Wallonie (in French). Brussels: Lefebvre & Gillet. ISBN 9782871480167. OCLC 489961289.
  • Le Bailly de Tilleghem, Serge (1988). "Naissance d'un art national". De Roger de le Pasture à Paul Delvaux (in French). pp. 185–192.

External links

Category:1810 births Category:1884 deaths Category:Artists from Liège Category:19th-century Belgian painters Category:Belgian portrait painters Category:Belgian history painters Category:Religious artists Category:Kunstakademie Düsseldorf alumni Category:Belgian art educators Category:Belgian curators Category:Recipients of the Order of Leopold (Belgium) Category:Burials in Belgium Category:Düsseldorf school of painting