Ferdinand Birotheau (La Roche-sur-Yon, 1819 – Rennes, 1892)

“Henri Guillaume of Rochebrune”

Oil on canvas
Signed on the lower right F. Birotheau Fecit
Inscription : Henri Guillaume of Rochebrune
Between 1857 and 1859
Dimensions : 100 x 82 cm (with frame) and 126 x 105 cm (without frame)
Ferdinand BIROTHEAU is a painter born in 1819 in Napoléon-Vendée and died in Rennes in 1892, after his studies in La Roche-sur-Yon, the municipality and the General council of the Vendée gave him a scolarship to perfect his talents as an artist in Paris. Student of Drolling, he met later Paul Baudry. In 1842, he exhibits for the first time in the Salon of the french artists, he presents Jesus and the Samaritan, then Renaud and Armide at the Salon of 1847 ; despite his history paintings, it seems like he did a great number of portrait of contemporary notables He teaches for a bit in Fontenay-le-Comte and realised in 1845 for the municipality administration of yon the copy of the painting of Gérard ” Portrait in foot of Napoléon the 1th” (L’Ouest Artistique et Littéraire, 1892).