Melchior Doze, After Hippolyte Flandrin - Victorious Angels, Saint Vincent De Paul Frieze

From the encaustic frieze of the right pilaster of the choir of the Church of Saint-Vincent de Paul in Paris Around 1880Born in Uzès in 1827, Melchior Doze grew up in Nîmes where he attended drawing school from the age of fifteen. He then perfected his skills with Joseph Felon (1818-1897) and Hippolyte Flandrin (1809-1864) who was then working on the decoration of the Church of Saint-Paul (Nîmes). He then took lessons from the latter, whom he met again in his Parisian studio from 1862. He exhibited at the Salon between 1861 and 1879 and received several awards. He also taught at the drawing school in his town before being appointed director in 1875. The artist then devoted himself almost entirely to painting religious subjects and created the decorations for several churches in the Gard department, including the church of Saint-Charles and the cathedral of Notre-Dame-et-Saint-Castor in Nîmes. With a skillful and pure style inherited from the Byzantine tradition in the service of religious sentiment, Melchior Doze necessarily borrowed from Flandrin, notably from the grand decoration of the church of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul in Paris, as our painting, which he copied from the master, bears witness to. The version created by the student turns out to be of a softer modeling and a characteristic black outline emphasizing with intensity and modernity the gaze and the bodies of these figures.