Henri-Édouard TRUCHOT
 (Blieskastel, 1798 – ?, 1822)

 Prayer to the Virgin in a ruined church
 Oil on canvas
 Signed and dated lower left
 40.5 x 32.5 cm
 1821

 Henri-Édouard Truchot was born on May 3, 1798 in Blieskastel (formerly Castres in French) in the Saarland, then under French rule. His parents predestined the future artist to a career in offices. He was admitted at the age of thirteen and a half to the services of the Journal de l'Enregistrement; at seventeen, he moved to those of the administration of the Garde-Meuble, where he joined his father as bookkeeper. This job having been abolished in 1815, this abolition led to the dismissal of the father and son.

 It was at this time that his father met the painter Charles-Marie Bouton, who then decided to train the budding artist, first in drawing, then, following successful attempts, in painting. It was only in the course of 1817 that Truchot truly took up the palette and two years later he exhibited no fewer than five paintings for his debut at the Paris Salon. He was then noted for the vigor of his colors, the firmness of his touch and the grandiose and picturesque effect of the whole. The Salon of 1822, with eight paintings exhibited, only confirmed the hopes of such a precocious and already well-formed talent.

 Truchot had the opportunity to visit England and produced two paintings of Canterbury Cathedral which were exhibited at the Salon of 1822. This trip was unfortunately fatal for him, he caught a chest infection from which he did not recover and died on August 18, 1822. The artist was buried a few weeks later in the Père-Lachaise cemetery.

 Posthumously, a final painting representing A View of the Church of Mont-Saint-Michel was exhibited in 1824.

 Truchot worked for the Duke of Orléans (later Louis-Philippe) who owned no fewer than four paintings in his personal collection. According to the Salon booklets, other great names of the time also collected his works, such as the Opera dancer Émilie Bigottini (two paintings), the Marquise de Lauriston (two paintings), Alexandre Du Sommerard (who founded the current Cluny Museum), and the Count of Houdetot (peer of France).

 Likewise, the Duchess of Berry, the art dealer Alphonse Giroux, the painter Louis Daguerre, the collectors Antoine Valedau (an important donor to the Fabre Museum in Montpellier) and the knight Féréol Bonnemaison also fell in love with his works.

 Truchot painted, with a few exceptions, architectural subjects, feudal castles, interiors of cloisters and churches. Xavier Leprince, who was his friend, sometimes created the figures in his paintings, as can be attested by the descriptions of the paintings exhibited at the Paris Salons of 1822 and 1824.

 The obituary of Xavier Leprince, himself who died young and in full ascendancy in 1826 – says much about the fame that Truchot was beginning to enjoy:

 The already very long list of distinguished young painters struck down in recent years by premature death has just been extended further. The loss of Cauchereau, Michallon, Pagnest, Géricault, Léon Pallière, Louis Gudin, Truchot, etc., is followed by that of the young Leprince, victim at the age of twenty-six of a chest condition which took his life in a few months.

 Museums : Chaumont, Cherbourg, Montpellier, Paris (Mus. de Cluny) …