Antoine Ansiaux

Jean Joseph Eleonora Antoine Ansiaux (1764–1840) was an Austrian Netherlands-born historical and portrait painter who worked in France.

Jean Joseph Eleonora Antoine Ansiaux
Autoportrait, 1796
Born	1764 Liège, Belgium
Died	1840 Paris, France

Life

Cardinal Richelieu presenting Poussin to Louis XIII, 1817

Ansiaux, a pupil of François-André Vincent, was born in Liège, Belgium, in 1764.

His elder brother, Emmanuel Antoine Joseph Ansiaux (1761-1800), worked in politics and law, a pathway the younger Ansiaux was to have taken before turning to art.^[1][2][3]

His works, taken from sacred and profane history, and poetical subjects, are numerous, and place him among the best artists of the French school in the 19th century. He also painted portraits of several distinguished persons, ministers, and generals of Napoleon I.

He was known for working in the Romantic-inspired Troubadour style of French historical painting. The Grove Dictionary of Art criticized his works done in this style, calling them "very uneven" and "often laborious."^[4]

Death

Ansiaux died in Paris in 1840.

Works

His works include:

• Angers. Cathedral: Raising of the Cross, 1827.
• Arras. Cathedral: Resurrection
• Bordeaux. Museum: Richelieu presenting Poussin to Louis XIII, 1817.
• Le Mans. Cathedral: Adoration of the Kings.
• Liège Cathedral: Ascension, 1812 and Conversion of St. Paul, 1814.
• Liège, Hôtel-de-Ville: Return of the Prodigal Son, 1819.
• Lille. Museum: St. John rebuking Herod, 1822 and finding of Moses, 1822.
• Metz. Cathedral: The Flagellation.
• Paris, S. Etienne-du-Mont: St. Paul preaching at Athens.

Gallery

Selected works by Antoine Ansiaux

• 
  Portrait de Constance Charpentier Huile sur toile, c. 1800
• 
  Saint Jean-Baptiste faisant des reproches à Hérode, 1822
• 
  Emmanuel Crétet, comte de Champmol (1747-1809), 1810
• 
  Margaretha van Bourgondië, gravin van Tonnerre, c. 19th century
• 
  Portrait du général français Jean-Baptiste Kléber, général en chef de l'Armée d'Orient (1753-1800), 1804
• 
  Presentation of Christ in the Temple, 1785
• 
  Portrait of Michel-Laurent de Sélys-Longchamps [fr], Belgian politician, date unknown; now in the collection of the University of Liège