Charles Louis Couturier (plailly 1768 - Châtonnay 1939)

Marquis Jean-Jacques de CHEVALLIER de Sinard walking on his land.
Oil on canvas, signed and dated 1822 lower left.
49 x 65.5 cm

Charles-Louis COUTURIER (Plailly (Seine-et-Marne) 1768 - Châtonnay (Isère) 1852)

His father was a gamekeeper at the Château de Mortefontaine near Plailly. Important painters were invited to stay at the property: Vigée-Lebrun, Hubert-Robert, L.F. Cassas, L.G. Moreau... The young Couturier was a student of Louis-Joseph Jay at the Montpellier School of Drawing. Jay, a native of Saint-Jean-de-Bournay in Isère, was appointed professor of drawing at the École Centrale de Grenoble in 1796. He called upon his former student from Montpellier to assist him, who soon also became his assistant at the Grenoble Museum, founded in 1798 by Jay. Couturier, assistant professor from 1817 of Benjamin de Rolland and then of Théodore Ravanat, resigned in 1848, after more than 50 years of teaching in Grenoble. Jay's childhood friend, Count Antoine Français de Nantes, born in Beaurepaire (Isère), close to Lucien Bonaparte, deputy of Isère and Peer of France, was undoubtedly also Couturier's patron. Many of Couturier's works were acquired by important figures: the Duchess of Berry, Minister d'Haussez, Casimir-Périer, Count O'Donnel, and others. Charles Couturier married Sophie Marie Julie Vincent, granddaughter of Catherine Hache, on June 5, 1811; her witness was Thomas Hache Dumirail.