Theodore Chasseriau: The Unknown Romantic

Théodore Chassériau was one of the most sensual and intellectual painters of his time. A pupil and precocious disciple of Ingres, he also fell under the influence of Delacroix, and he left his mark on both the second generation of Romantic artists and their Symbolist successors. Although his works fuse Ingres's linear precision with the lush color and Romantic exoticism of Delacroix, they escape easy stylistic classification. His oeuvre includes Orientalist and religious paintings, scenes from Antiquity, and portraits, but he is best known for his ambitious decorative compositions for the churches of Paris and for the Cour des Comptes in the Palais d'Orsay.

This beautiful book presents more than 250 of Chassériau's paintings, drawings, and prints. The texts of the essays and entries, as well as the extensive chronology, focus on the artist's personality, his professional and social milieu, and on the works themselves, thus providing an in-depth view of the state of the arts in France in the mid-nineteenth century.

This lavishly illustrated book serves as the catalogue of the first retrospective of Chassériau's work since 1933, to be held at the Grand Palais, Paris (February 26-May 27, 2002), the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Strasbourg (June 9-September 21, 2002), and The Metropolitan Museum of Art (October 21, 2002-January 5, 2003).