Lancelot Théodore Turpin de Crissé
1782–1859 · French
The story
Lancelot-Théodore Turpin de Crissé was born in Paris in 1782 into a titled family that the French Revolution soon ruined, forcing them to flee the capital. He finished his education in Switzerland and Italy with the support of a family friend, and it was the Italian countryside that fixed his subject for life: sunlit landscapes with classical buildings, ruins and villas.
Under Napoleon his fortunes turned again. He joined the court of the Empress Joséphine as one of her chamberlains, and in 1810 accompanied her through Switzerland and Savoy, filling an album with dozens of sepia views made along the way. After Joséphine's death and the fall of the Empire in 1814, he went back to painting full time.
He was also a serious collector, buying and promoting the work of younger contemporaries, among them the young Ingres, a leading French painter of the next generation. Turpin de Crissé kept working in Paris until his death in 1859. His careful Italian landscapes now hang in museums from the Louvre to Washington.
