Decamps at the Wallace Collection - Alexandre Gabriel Decamps, painter, England - Brief Article

Magazine Antiques, Nov, 2000 by Miriam Kramer

For one of its first special exhibitions since the completion of its expansion and renovation this summer, the Wallace Collection in London is mounting a show devoted to the work of Alexandre Gabriel Decamps. It is entitled Watercolors by Decamps and is on view until January 7, 2001. The artist was born in Paris, the son of a tenant farmer, who sent him to his small native village of Orsay in Picardy to learn the hardships of peasant life. This plan backfired when the young Decamps rebelled and spent his time running wild and neglecting his studies. As an artist he also defied tradition by being largely self-taught; he spent brief periods studying with two minor Paris artists, Etienne Bouhot and Alexandre Denis Abel de Pujol.

In common with Eugene Delacroix, Decamps painted Oriental scenes before he had ever left France. For his debut at the Salon of 1827 he executed a French hunting scene entitled Soldier of the Vizier's Guard. The same year he traveled in North Africa and the Near East and visited Greece and Turkey Afterwards he produced works depicting these regions. Although he aspired to be a history painter--and painted many works in that category along with biblical scenes--he became best known for and helped to popularize Oriental scenes. He acquired honors for his genre rather than his history paintings, a distinction that rankled him. Decamps died following a riding accident in the forest of Fontainebleau, where he had frequently visited members of the Barbizon group and to which he retired after 1855.

The Wallace Collection owns sixteen paintings, eleven watercolors, and one pastel by Decamps. There is no catalogue.