Alexandre Gabriel Decamps

Alexandre Gabriel Decamps , 1803-60, French genre and historical painter, engraver, and lithographer. First known for his caricatures and illustrations, he turned to painting in thick impasto and strong color. One of his richest sources was the Middle East, which he depicted in vivid detail. His Good Samaritan and Night Patrol at Smyrna are in the Metropolitan Museum.

Decamps, Alexandre-Gabriel (b Paris, 3 May 1803; d Fontainebleau, 22 Aug. 1860). French painter and printmaker. Decamps was one of the first and most successful specialists in Orientalism. He first exhibited an oriental picture at the Salon in 1827 (A Janissary, Wallace Coll., London) and in 1828–9 he made an extensive journey through Greece, the Middle East, and North Africa, bringing back weapons, costumes, and other souvenirs, as well as sketches—a fund of reference material for his work. Typically he painted on a fairly small scale, with bright colours and richly impasted brushwork. He accumulated a long list of honours, and a statue of him was erected in Fontainebleau (where he settled in 1857) only two years after his death; it is by Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse (1824–87), one of the most prolific French sculptors of the time. Subsequently Decamps's reputation faded. His work is well represented in the Louvre, Paris, and the Wallace Collection, London.

Destailleur, Hippolyte-Alexandre-Gabriel-Walter (1822–93). Paris-born architect. He built a number of town- and country-houses in a Renaissance Revival style, including the Château du Duc de Massa, Franconville, Oise (1880–5), Waddesdon Manor, near Aylesbury, Bucks (1888–90), and the Palais d'Albert de Rothschild, Prinz Eugen Strasse, Vienna (1876–82). He designed the priory and mausoleum for Napoleon III and his family at Farnborough, Hants. (1887–9—in a Flamboyant Gothic style), and various mausolea and memorials, including the Hersent tomb, Père-Lachaise Cemetery (1861), and the Collard tomb, Montparnasse Cemetery (1864), both in Paris. His published works include Recueil d'estampes relatives à l'ornamentation des appartements aux XVI^e, XVII^e, and XVIII^e siècles (Collection of Engravings Relative to the Ornamentation of Rooms of C16, 17, and 18— 1858–71), and he was much sought-after as a designer of furniture and interiors.

Bibliography

Berckenhagen (1976);
Dinsmoor & and Muthesius (1985);
Hampshire: The County Magazine, xxix/9 (1983), 36–9