Amédée Elie Servin (1829-1884)

Amédée Elie SERVIN (1829-1884) Cows and their shepherdess Oil on panel signed and dated 1881 24 x 32 cm Amédée Élie Servin born on September 5, 1829 in Paris from a family originally from Douai, and died on May 7, 1884 in Villiers-sur-Morin. He entered the Beaux-Arts in Paris on April 7, 1848, in the studio of the painter Michel Martin Drolling. His classmates included students of his generation, such as Jean-Jacques Henner, Benjamin Ulmann, Paul Baudry. He also frequented the studio of François Édouard Picot. He made his debut at the Salon of 1850, presented a Courtyard Interior and lived at 18 rue de Bellefond where he exhibited regularly. In 1855, he exhibited three landscape paintings inspired by Normandy and the following year, he was inspired by Breton landscapes. He was in contact with the first painters who frequented Barbizon, where he met Théodore Rousseau and Jean-François Millet. Around 1857, he settled in Villiers-sur-Morin, became a friend of Jules Grenier (1844-1888), then in 1860, he founded the Cercle artistique de Villiers, and persuaded other artists and writers to come to this village. He began to produce landscapes inspired by this village in Seine-et-Marne, where he remained until his death. Artists joined him, such as Ernest Boetzel, who translated his paintings into engravings, or Louis-Alexandre Bouché, then his former comrades like Ulmann. In 1872, he received a medal at the Salon, a year after losing his wife. The Parisian gallery that represented him was Deforge-Carpentier. His widowhood made him sad, his production diminished. His friend Alexandre Falguière sculpted his bust portrait for a monument erected in his honor in Villiers in 1887. Servin was nicknamed the "master of the Morin Valley". Bibliographic references. Pierre Satet, Amédée Servin (1829-1884). The master of the Morin Valley and his friends, collection "The great unknowns", Le Livre d'histoire, 1999