Antique French Oil Painting Claude Rouget De LiIsle Singing "La Marseillaise" by Isidore Alexandre Augustin Pils, Circa 1849

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A fine antique French oil painting on canvas by Isidore Alexandre Augustin Pils (1815–1875), the painting depicting Claude Joseph Rouget … Read more A fine antique French oil painting on canvas by Isidore Alexandre Augustin Pils (1815–1875), the painting depicting Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle (1760-1836) singing "La Marseillaise", circa 1849.

Isidore Pils was an academic painter, very often painting military subjects. Claude Rouget de Lisle was a French army officer from the French Revolutionary Wars and famously wrote the words to "La Marseillaise" and first performed it to the Mayor of Strasbourg; Baron Philippe-Frederic de Dietrich. This painting dates to the middle of the 19th century and could be by the hand of Pils or possibly a talented copyist who was also a classically trained artist.
The painting is in excellent condition and is housed in a gilded frame.
Isidore Pils produced a number of paintings with this famous scene and one such painting is housed in the collection of The Louvre in Paris.
At sight without frame 26.50" x 22"

Pils was born in Paris as the son of a soldier François Pils. At the age of twelve, he studied with Guillaume Guillon-Lethière for four years.
In 1831 he became a student at the École des Beaux-Arts and studied under François-Édouard Picot. He competed for the Prix de Rome, which he won in 1838 for a history painting, St. Peter Healing a Lame Man at the Door of the Temple. Although in poor health, Pils then spent the customary three years at the French Academy in Rome at the Villa Medici, which then had Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres as its director. While in Italy he visited Naples, Venice, and Florence.
Pils's earlier paintings have religious themes. In 1849 he completed his most famous work, Rouget de L'Isle Singing La Marseillaise, which now resides at the Musée historique de Strasbourg. After experiences travelling with French troops through the Crimea, his themes took on military and nationalistic subjects. He later produced many military scenes during the siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.
Pils was appointed professor of painting at the École des Beaux-Arts in 1863 but left the same year for two years in Algeria. In 1868 he was elected to seat #14 of the Académie des Beaux-Arts. Among his students were Adrien Moreau, Paul Adolphe Rajon, Julien Dupré, Luc-Olivier Merson, Ludovic Piette, Édouard Joseph Dantan and László Mednyánszky Henry-Lionel Brioux.
Among his other work, Pils painted part of the ceiling of the grand staircase of the Palais Garnier, in four panels titled The Gods of Olympus, Apollo in His Chariot, Triumph of Harmony, and Apotheosis of the Opera, completed the year of his death. The following year he was the subject of a biography by Louis Becq de Fouquières. See less