Henri Regnault 1843-1871

Alexandre George Henri Regnault, second son of the chemist Henri Victor Regnault, began painting in 1857. He became a pupil of Louis Lamothe in 1861 and of Alexandre Cabanel in 1864 at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris, having previously studied at the Lycée Henri-IV in Paris. After five attempts, he won the Prix de Rome in 1866 with the painting Thetis Bringing Achilles the Arms Forged by Vulcan, allowing him to travel to Italy and reside at the Villa Medici.

Regnault made extensive use of his opportunities to travel, notably to Spain with his fellow student Auguste Laguillermie. His experiences there strongly influenced his work: he witnessed the Carlist revolution, the triumph of General Prim, and the flight of Queen Isabella II. He recorded his impressions in notebooks, and the discovery of the Alhambra in Granada left a profound mark on him.

At the Salon of 1870, his paintings General Prim and Salomé were exhibited to critical acclaim, with Théophile Gautier commenting: “Prim is all of Spain, Salomé is all of the Orient.” From Spain, Regnault traveled to Morocco in December 1869 with the painter Georges Clairin, renting a house in Tangier, where he painted the striking Orientalist work Execution Without Judgment Under the Moorish Kings of Granada.

Regnault was represented by the influential Parisian dealer Paul Durand-Ruel. Upon returning to France at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, he joined the francs-tireurs alongside the sculptor Émile Joseph Nestor Carlier. Tragically, he was killed at the Battle of Buzenval on 19 January 1871, struck by a Prussian bullet to the temple. Before his death, he had planned to travel to India and then settle in Tangier, having purchased land and a house with Georges Clairin overlooking the Socco (market) to establish a studio.

Works in Public Collections

United States

• Boston, Museum of Fine Arts: Automedon Bringing Back Achilles’ Horses from the Banks of the Scamander, 1868

• New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art: Salomé, 1870

France

• Compiègne, Musée national du Château de Compiègne: Portrait of Mme Arthur Fouques Duparc, 1867

• Dijon; Grenoble, Musée de Grenoble: Still Life, 1867

• Musée des Beaux-Arts: L’Espagnole Canaille, 1868, oil on wood, 81.6 × 64.2 cm

• Musée Magnin: Young Porter in Malta, 1867

• Musée de la Vie Bourguignonne Perrin de Puycousin: Garibaldi Under the Walls of Dijon, 1871, gouache on paper, 27.8 × 21.8 cm

• Pau, Musée des Beaux-Arts: Shepherd of the Castilian Mountains, 1868

• Paris: Versailles, Château de Versailles: Jean-Baptiste Biot (1774-1862), 1862

• Musée d’Orsay:

  • Portrait of Madame Mazois on Her Deathbed, 1866

  • Automedon Bringing Back Achilles’ Horses from the Banks of the Scamander, 1868, sketch

  • Portrait of General Prim, 1869, oil on canvas

  • La Comtesse de Barck, Dressed as a Spaniard, 1869

  • Execution Without Judgment Under the Moorish Kings of Granada, 1870

• Musée du Louvre, Département des Arts Graphiques:

  • City Entrance in the Maghreb, oil on paper

  • Court of Ambassadors at the Alhambra, drawing

  • Portrait of Mme Léonie Louvancour, Wife of M. Arthur Fouques Duparc, drawing

  • Veturia at the Feet of Coriolanus, drawing

  • View of Château d’Arques, drawing