Edmond Jean de Pury

De Pury was born on 6 March 1845 in Neuchâtel.^[1][2] He was a member of the de Pury family, a Prussian noble family of Swiss origin, and was a nephew of James-Ferdinand de Pury.^[3]

He trained at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, studying painting and engraving.^[2] While at school in Paris, he was a student of Charles Gleyre^[2][3]

In a composite group portrait of students in Gleyre's atelier,^[4] de Pury was painted in the nude by fellow student Alfred Lenglet. Another student, Paul Milliet, wrote of the image in his memoirs: "The fragment…shows the athletic torso of…de Pury. Alfred Lenglet's painting is solid and luminous, but to render completely the elegant vigor of the model would have required the chisel of a Greek sculptor."^[5]

Although he painted landscapes, de Pury's main focus was portraiture.^[2][6][7] He was best known for his Italian figure paintings, mainly of working-class people of Rome, Capri, and Venice.^[2] The highest price for one of his paintings was US$40,599 in 2007 for In the Lagoons of Venice.^[1][8] His paintings were exhibited in Paris.^[2] His portrait of Richard Wagner was completed two years before the composer's death.^[2] His work is displayed in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts Bern, the Kunstmuseum Basel, the Museum des Beaux-Arts de La Chaux-de-Fonds, the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire de Genève, and the Cantonal Museum of Fine Arts.^[9][2]

In 1889 de Pury was awarded a medal at the Exposition Universelle.^[2]

He was married to Marie Amélie Mathilde Wagnière (1849–1928), member of a noted Swiss family of diplomats, who herself was also an artist.^[2]

De Pury died on 7 November 1911 in Lausanne.^[1][2][10]

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  Young Venetian Woman
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  Portrait of Alba Brunelli, Wife of the Painter Riblet, 1902
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  At the Well
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  Portrait of a Young Girl
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  Hélène, the Little Shopkeeper
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  Sisterly Affection
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  A Young Italian Fisher (Gulf of Naples)
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  Fishermen on the Lake
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  Boats in the Canals of Venice