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Pierre-Paul Prud'hon prints bring the soft light and dreamy grace of French Neoclassical painting into your home. Prud'hon painted Empress Joséphine, allegories of love and virtue, and some of the most admired figure drawings of his age, and he was an early influence on Géricault. Our collection of fine art prints covers his paintings, portraits, decorative allegories and many of his chalk studies of the human figure.

About Pierre-Paul Prud'hon

Pierre-Paul Prud'hon was born in Cluny, in Burgundy, on 4 April 1758. He trained in the French provinces, married Jeanne Pennet in 1778, and at twenty-six went to Italy to continue his studies. In Paris he became an enthusiastic supporter of the Revolution, making drawings of mythological and republican allegories that his friend Jacques-Louis Copia engraved, and painting a portrait of Louis de Saint-Just.

After the fall of Robespierre in 1794 he thought it wise to leave Paris and spent two years in Franche-Comté painting portraits and illustrating books. Back in Paris from 1796, he decorated private mansions with allegories of art, philosophy, wealth and pleasure, and in 1802 he was given a studio at the Sorbonne.

In 1803 the painter Constance Mayer joined his studio as a student and soon became his close collaborator and partner. He would plan and sketch a composition and she would paint the finished picture, so closely that their contributions are hard to separate. Under Napoleon he painted Empress Joséphine in the garden at Malmaison, and later taught drawing to the second empress, Marie-Louise, and designed furniture for her. His late Crucifixion (1822), painted for Metz Cathedral, is now in the Louvre. He died in Paris on 16 February 1823.

Style and Subjects

Prud'hon's figures seem to glow out of soft shadow. His contemporaries, and later Delacroix, Millet and Baudelaire, admired his chiaroscuro, the way he modelled bodies with gentle light and dark. His mythological and allegorical scenes, full of cupids, nymphs and personified virtues, have a tender, dreamy mood that sets them apart from the harder Neoclassicism of David.

He is now admired above all for his drawings, made in black and white chalk on tinted paper, where the figure seems to emerge from the paper itself.

Famous Works

• Portrait of Louis de Saint-Just (1793), Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon. A portrait of a leading figure of the Reign of Terror, from his revolutionary years.
• Portrait of Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck and His Family (1801), Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. A Dutch statesman with his wife and children.
• Innocence Preferring Love to Riches (1804), Art Institute of Chicago. A gentle allegory of a young woman choosing love over wealth.
• The Empress Joséphine (1805), Louvre, Paris. Napoleon's wife seated alone in the garden of Malmaison.
• Justice and Divine Vengeance Pursuing Crime (1808), Louvre, Paris. His dark, dramatic masterpiece, which anticipates Géricault's Raft of the Medusa.
• Andromache and Astyanax (1818), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The Trojan widow embraces her son, a late classical subject.
• The Soul Breaking the Ties That Bind It to Earth (1822), Louvre, Paris. A late picture of a soul rising upward, painted in his final year of work.

Decorating with Prud'hon Prints

Prud'hon's soft, warm pictures suit calm rooms. The allegories of love, such as The Happy Mother or The Dream of Happiness, fit a bedroom or sitting room, and The Empress Joséphine sits well in a formal living room with French or Empire-style furniture.

His chalk figure studies look elegant grouped in a hallway, study or reading room, and their muted tones work with both classic and pared-back modern interiors.

FAQ

What art movement was Pierre-Paul Prud'hon part of?

He was a French Neoclassical painter and draughtsman, though his soft modelling and dreamy mood also point toward Romanticism.

What is Prud'hon's most famous painting?

Justice and Divine Vengeance Pursuing Crime (1808) in the Louvre is usually called his masterpiece. His portrait of Empress Joséphine at Malmaison is also very well known.

Who was Constance Mayer?

Constance Mayer was a painter who joined his studio in 1803 and became his collaborator and partner. He planned and sketched many compositions that she painted, and some were shown as her work.

Where can I see Prud'hon's paintings?

The Louvre has the largest group. Other works are in the Rijksmuseum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Hermitage and the Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon.

Related Artists

• Théodore Géricault: copied Prud'hon's work as a young painter and was influenced by him
• Jacques-Louis David: leading Neoclassical painter of the same era
• François Gérard: received the commission for a portrait of Marie-Louise that Prud'hon lost
• Antoine-Jean Gros: French painter of the Napoleonic court in the same years