Anne-Louis Girodet
Date of birth: 1767
Date of death: 1824
Category: painter
Identity:
Anne-Louis Girodet was a painter of historical scenes.
Life:
Whistler may have been commissioned to paint a Copy after Girodet's The Entombment of Atala 1808 (Musée du Louvre, INV 4958). Girodet showed the painting at the 1808 Salon. It was widely praised, and admired by, among others, Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867).
On 16 September 1857 Anna Matilda Whistler (1804-1881) wrote to Whistler: 'Mr King desires to be remembered to you & says when he is able to send you an order it will be to copy "The burial of Atala" in the Louvre gallery. he once owned a copy of it a large fine picture three feet square, from association with his dear Isabella as her selection when they were in Paris, he very naturally wishes to have it to contemplate again.' (17 August and 16 September 1857, GUW #06487). However, there is no further reference to this.
Bibliography:
Bénézit, E., Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs, 8 vols, Paris, 1956-61. Stéphane Guégan, ‘De Chateaubriand à Girodet: Atala ou la belle morte’, Chateaubriand et les Arts, Paris, 1999, pp. 137-152. Robertson, Pamela, 'Whistler's St Luc', in Hermens, Erma et al. (eds.), Connecting Whistler, Glasgow, 2010, pp. 10-15, online. Musée du Louvre website at louvre.fr.
