Charles-Alexandre Coëssin de la Fosse
Charles-Alexandre Coëssin de la Fosse (1829–1910) was a French neoclassisist painter and engraver. Life. He was born in Lisieux, Calvados (a department in Normandy), he went in Paris in 1857 in a way to make his first exhibition. From this time and during his entire life, he exhibited regularly at the Salon. He painted mostly genre scenes—war, religion, and mythology—and is noted for his skill in composition and the use of color. He died in Paris in 1910. His work is strongly influenced by the reaction against the Republic, and by  the Catholic religion. This is obviously an expression of his personal conviction: actually his family was a noble and traditional one, but the influence of his patrons was probably determinative. Much of Coëssin de la Fosse's work represents the chouans, like "L'embuscade" ("the ambush"), or Catholic worship scenes such as "Procession autour d'une croix en pierre" ("Procession around a stone cross"). Today, his work is owned by museums in Bayeux, Gray, Liège, Lisieux, Reims, Paris, and New York.