François Bouchot

He studied at the École des beaux-arts de Paris. His primary instructors there were Jean-Baptiste Regnault and Jules Richomme. He also frequented the studios of Guillaume Guillon-Lethière on the Rue Childebert [fr].^[1]

In 1822, he came in second at the Prix de Rome. He won the following year and arrived at the French Academy in Rome in 1824. That same year, he sent his first painting back to France, where it was exhibited at the Salon of 1824. He would remain in Italy for seven years.

Back in France, he was named a Knight of the Legion of Honor in 1835. Over the next few years, he executed several commissions from King Louis-Philippe, including scenes from the Second Battle of Zurich and the Coup of 18 Brumaire. The latter was given a special display at the Salon of 1840, on the occasion of Napoleon's ashes being returned to France. After being at the Louvre for many years, it is now at Versailles.

Sometime in the late 1830s, he married Francesca Lablache (1816-1901). daughter of the comic opera singer Luigi Lablache, whose portrait he had painted. They had no children. Shortly before his death, she left him to join her lover, the German painter Henri Lehmann, in Italy. A year later, she married the pianist Sigismond Thalberg.^[2]

He was preparing to paint murals for a new chapel at Luxembourg Palace, when he died suddenly. The cause of his death was apparently not recorded and what, if any, relationship it may have had to his wife's affair is unknown. His final work Napoleon Signing His Abdication at Fontainebleau was completed by Gaetano Ferri.

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  Portrait of Pierre-Narcisse Guérin, 1830
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  Portrait of Luigi Lablache, 1831
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  The Battle of Zurich, 1835
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  Portrait of Jacques François Dugommier, 1836
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  The Wounded Drummer, 1836
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  Portrait of Giulia Grisi, 1840
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  Bonaparte at the Council of Five Hundred at Saint-Cloud, 1840
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  Napoleon Signing His Abdication at Fontainebleau, 1843