PIERRE-NICOLAS BRISSET (1810-1890)

PORTRAIT OF MONSIEUR MERLEY, DRESSED AS A DANDY
Signed & inscribed in pencil l.l (beneath mount) A Merley / par Brisset
Bears inscription on the backing Munificenza del Signor Merley
Watercolor with pencil
28 x 23 cm
 
PROVENANCE:
Charles Saunier (1865-1941), Paris (L.567b);
Seymour & Zoya Slive, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
 
 
 
 
Griset studied under the artists Louis-Charles-Auguste Couder and François-Édouard Picot in Paris, later embarking on the mandatory visit to Rome in 1835, which evidently inspired the artist to return on a longer-term basis. Two years after this initial visit, Brisset won the second place in the Prix de Rome for painting, together with Thomas Couture, and three years after this he won the Prix with his painting of  Caius Gracchus, Summoned by the Senate, Leaves for Rome, and was a pensionnaire of the French Academy in Rome for four years, between 1841-1845. 
 
Upon his return to France, Brisset assisted his teacher Picot with his work on the frescoes of the Parisian church of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, later working independently as a mural painter himself in the churches of Sainte-Clotilde, La Sainte-Trinité, Saint-Roch and Saint-Augustin. In 1862 Brisset designed the 100 franc banknote for the Banque de France, a design which remained in use until 1923. Also active as an art teacher, among his various students he counted Henri Gervex, one of the most notorious and successful French artists of the latter half of the 19th century.