page_title: Merry-Joseph Blondel
section_title: Public commissions
hierarchical_section_title: Merry-Joseph Blondel / Public commissions
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Palais du Louvre - Conseil d'État - Antichambre - La France victorieuse à Bouvines - Merry-Joseph Blondel (1828)
context_page_description: Merry-Joseph Blondel was a French history painter of the Neoclassical school. He was a winner of the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1803. After the salon of 1824, he was bestowed with the rank of Knight in the order of the Legion d'Honneur by Charles X of France and offered a professorship at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts: a position in which he remained until his death in 1853. In 1832, he was elected to a seat at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
  Blondel was a student of the Neoclassical master Baron Jean-Baptiste Regnault and from 1809, a lifelong friend of the painter Ingres.
  For much of Blondel's painting career, he was occupied with public commissions for paintings and frescoes in important buildings, including palaces, museums and churches. Blondel completed major commissions for the Palace of Fontainebleau, the Palace of Versailles, the Louvre Museum, the Brongniart Palace, the Luxembourg Palace, and the churches of St.Thomas Aquinas and Notre-Dame-de-Lorette.
context_section_description: By the mid 1820s, his many notable achievements had firmly established Blondel as a history painter of great renown and he was accordingly rewarded with many public commissions for paintings and frescoes in important buildings, including museums, palaces and churches.  Most notable among these commissions were:
  at the palace of Fontainebleau - Salon and Gallery of Diana, a fresco series of 21 paintings of scenes related to the goddess Diana.
  the Palace of Versailles - a series of full sized portraits depicting all the known kings and queens of France.
  the Louvre Museum - frescoes in the Grand staircase (Personification of France receiving the constitutional charter), the Salle Henri II (scene depicting Minerva and Neptune), Rooms of the state counsel (La France victorieuse à Bouvines to commemorate the victory at the Battle of Bouvines).
  the Brongniart Palace (also known as the  Bourse de Paris) - Ceiling painting and several cameos.
  the Luxembourg Palace - ceiling fresco in the Salle des Séances.
  the church of Notre-Dame-de-Lorette.
  the church of St.Thomas Aquinas - fresco cycle.
  Blondel was working on his fresco cycle at the church of St. Thomas Aquinas, in the 7e arronsissement when he fell ill and died in 1853.
caption: La France victorious at Bouvines, Palais du Louvre
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