Léon Cogniet

Léon Cogniet (29 August 1794 – 20 November 1880) was a French history and portrait painter. He is probably best remembered as a teacher, with more than one hundred notable students.
Biography
He was born in Paris. His father was a painter and wallpaper designer. In 1812, he enrolled at the École des Beaux-arts, where he studied with Pierre-Narcisse Guérin. He also worked in the studios of Jean-Victor Bertin. After failing an attempt to win the Prix de Rome in 1816, he won the following year with his depiction of Helen Rescued by Castor and Pollux and received a stipend to study at the French Academy in Rome until 1822. Before leaving, he had his first exhibition at the Salon.
In 1827, he created a series of murals on the life of Saint Stephen for the church of Saint-Nicholas-des-Champs. From 1833 to 1835, he painted a scene from Napoleon's expedition to Egypt on one of the ceilings at the Louvre. Between 1840 and 1860, he operated a popular painting workshop for women, directed by his sister Marie Amélie and one of his students, Catherine Caroline Thévenin (1813–1892), who later became his wife. After 1843, he concentrated almost entirely on teaching, with an occasional portrait. After 1855, he essentially gave up painting.
After 1831, he taught design at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand. He also taught at the École polytechnique from 1847 to 1861. In 1851, he was appointed a Professor at the École des Beaux-arts, a position he held until 1863, when he retired, slowly giving up his private students and becoming more reclusive.
He died forgotten in the 10th arrondissement of Paris in 1880 and is interred at Père-Lachaise.
His sister was the painter Marie Amélie Cogniet.
Selected works
History paintings:
La Garde nationale de Paris part pour l’armée, Septembre 1792 (The Paris National Guard on its way to the Army, September 1792)
Tintoretto painting his dead daughter (1843; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux)
Scenes of July 1830
Les Drapeaux, 1830. The day after the "Three Glorious Days" of the 1830 Revolution, the painter depicts the white flag of the restoration of the monarchy (on the left), torn and revealing the blue sky (in the middle). The red fold then spreads like a bloodstain (on the right). thus recreating the Republic's tricolor flag.
Portraits:
Maréchal Maison
Louis Philippe
M. de Crillon
Jean-François Champollion
Pupils
Among his numerous students were:
Pedro Américo
Félix-Joseph Barrias
Louis-Ernest Barrias
Émile Bayard
François-Léon Benouville
Émile Bin
Nils Blommér
Rosa Bonheur
Léon Bonnat
Alfred Boucher
Marie-Abraham Rosalbin de Buncey
Adolphe-Félix Cals
Henriette Cappelaere
Henri Chapu
François Chifflart
Pierre Auguste Cot
Alfred Darjou
Alfred de Dreux
Alfred Dehodencq
Godefroy Durand
Louis Duveau
Augustin Feyen-Perrin
Claude Ferdinand Gaillard
Wojciech Gerson
Karl Girardet
Eugène Ernest Hillemacher
Jean-Paul Laurens
Jules Lefebvre
Diogène Maillart
Francisco Masias Rodriguez
Oscar-Pierre Mathieu
Constant Mayer
Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier
Hugues Merle
Charles Louis Müller
Ion Negulici
Victor Nehlig
Dominique Papety
Henri Félix Emmanuel Philippoteaux
Paul Philippoteaux
Adolphe Piot
Gustav Richter
Tony Robert-Fleury
Henryk Rodakowski
Louis Rubio
Eugénie Salanson
Hippolyte Sebron
Charles Sellier
Alexandre Ségé
Emma Formstetcher
August Schenck
Notes
References
External links
1794 births
1880 deaths
19th-century French painters
École des Beaux-Arts alumni
Painters from Paris
Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery
French male painters
French romantic painters
French portrait painters
French history painters
Members of the Académie des beaux-arts
Orientalist painters
Prix de Rome for painting
Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class)
Sibling artists
Lycée Louis-le-Grand teachers
19th-century French male artists