Collection: Alexandre Gabriel Decamps

Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps (1803–1860) was born in Paris and trained under Abel de Pujol. A lithographer, etcher, and draughtsman, he began exhibiting in the 1820s. His early work included satirical illustrations published in "Le Figaro". Between 1827 and 1828, he traveled to Constantinople and Asia Minor, where he studied luminous contrasts and exotic motifs that shaped his later paintings.

Decamps’s work includes historical genre scenes, landscapes, and animal studies, executed in oil, watercolor, and lithography. His Orientalist paintings, such as "The Defeat of the Cimbri" and "Joseph Sold by His Brothers", reinterpreted biblical and classical narratives using Near Eastern topography and costume, a method later adopted by Gérôme and Fromentin.

He employed tenebrist chiaroscuro and impasto brushwork for dramatic effect, as seen in "The Monkey Painters" (1833), a critique of academic jurying. His animal paintings, particularly of dogs and monkeys, often carried satirical undertones, while his still lifes, like "Still Life with Pipe and Matches" (1858), show Dutch-influenced precision.

Critics initially dismissed Decamps’s work, but by the 1830s, his paintings gained acceptance. He was grouped with Delacroix and Vernet in discussions of French Romantic painting. His Orientalist compositions influenced 19th-century academic and Salon artists, and his genre scenes anticipated the social realism of Daumier. His works are held at the Louvre, the Wallace Collection, and the Musée Condé. He died in 1860 after a fall from a horse while hunting near Fontainebleau.