Félix COTTRAU
 (Paris, 1799 – Paris, 1852)

 The adoration of the shepherds

 Oil on canvas
 Signed and dated lower right
 100.5 x 76 cm
 1842

 Exhibition :
  
 Paris Salon of 1842 under number 429

 Félix Cottrau was born in Paris on March 5, 1799; his father, secretary general of the Ministry of the Navy, obtained an important administrative position in the household of King Joseph. He took his entire family to Naples and it was at the Navy College of this city that Cottrau began with his brother Guillaume the studies that he completed in his family.
 We do not know in which workshop he took drawing and painting lessons, but when the events of 1815 deprived his father of his job and he was forced to create a career for himself, he only had to say to himself: I want to be a painter, to become one.
 His first successes date from the 1820s.
 Cottrau often made excursions to Rome; it was there that he became friends with several French artists; there were two of them for whom he rendered a service that only he could render them: always dressed in a manner that was at once picturesque, elegant and original, he was willing to serve as their model. He therefore posed in front of Léopold Robert (1794-1835) for the Dancing Harvester (with a sickle in his hand) and in front of Francisque Duret (1804-1865) for his Two Neapolitan Dancers.
 It was in Rome that he first saw the members of Napoleon's family, who were residing there. He never left their entourage again. He then made frequent trips to Arenenberg in Switzerland where the members of the imperial family had established their residence, going so far as to become the drawing teacher of Hortense de Beauharnais.
 However, all this did not make him neglect painting. From 1827 and until 1845, he sent several good paintings to the various exhibitions in Paris, among which we can note our Adoration of the Shepherds, of which here is a comment from the time about it: "Diametrically opposed to M. Flandrin, M. Félix Cottrau perhaps sacrifices the whole a little too much to the effect. The Adoration of the Shepherds that he exhibited is a beautiful, well-lit canvas, with good color and a great understanding of light; it does the greatest honor to M. Cottrau, and proves that this artist is among the small number of those who consider art for art's sake, and not for profit. His Adoration of the Shepherds is one of the good paintings of the Salon." (Journal des Artistes, July 3, 1842, p.194).
 His successes and the connections of the imperial family allowed him to be well introduced in foreign courts; he received several commissions from the King of Bavaria and other sovereign princes of Germany, as well as from the King of Holland.
 Cottrau was awarded the Legion of Honour on 5 July 1846 for his copy of Rembrandt's Anatomy Lesson, now on display at the School of Medicine. In 1852, he was appointed Inspector General of Fine Arts by Napoleon III.
 The artist died on December 19, 1852 in Paris at the age of 53. He is buried in the Montparnasse cemetery.

 His portrait-charge by Jean-Pierre Dantan (1800-1869) was made in 1829 in Rome and is today exhibited at the Carnavalet Museum.

 Museums : Bourges, Paris (Louvre, Academy of Medicine), Vitré, Calais, Rennes, Malmaison, Compiègne, Bordeaux…