Henri-pierre Picou (1824–1895) A Chapel - Nantes

Henri-Pierre PICOU
(Nantes, 1824 – Nantes, 1895)
A Chapel
Oil on panel
H. 40.5 cm; W. 31.5 cm
Signed and dated lower left
1850 or 1860

Henri Picou is often regarded solely as a somewhat sentimental exponent of the Neo-Greek style he practiced, unlike his peers such as Gleyre, Hamon, Gérôme, or Toulmouche, throughout his life.
Having entered Delaroche’s studio at age 12, he won the Second Grand Prix de Rome in 1853 with a “Jesus Driving the Merchants from the Temple”, a regular exhibitor at the Paris Salon with approximately 80 paintings between 1847 and his death, Picou was also an excellent painter of history and, on occasion, of religious subjects. He created murals for the Church of Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Port in Nantes and for the churches of Saint-Roch and Saint-Eustache in Paris, as well as for the small church in Chailly-en-Bière (near Fontainebleau), where the artist lived in the 1850s. In fact, the painter spent the last years of his life in a religious setting: the Saint-Jacques hospice in Nantes.

The church depicted here has not yet been identified, but it appears to be a chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary, with what could be a Holy Family and an Annunciation on either side of the stained-glass window.