Grandjean de Montigny, Auguste Henri Victor (1776–1850)

Auguste Henri Victor Grandjean de Montigny (b. 15 July 1776; d. 2 March 1850), French architect. Grandjean de Montigny studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He arrived in Rio de Janeiro with the French Artistic Mission, which was organized by Joaquim Lebreton (1760–1819) at the invitation of the Portuguese crown. After his arrival on 26 March 1816, he was asked to design the future Academy of Fine Arts, and he was nominated professor of architecture and given two assistants. The construction of the academy began, but financial difficulties delayed its completion.

Meanwhile Grandjean de Montigny looked for other jobs, such as the Praça do Comércio (1820), a structure in which merchants conducted business. He was also responsible for the old market of Candelária (1836) and for several private houses. Grandjean de Montigny and other French artists were in charge of decorating Rio de Janeiro's Palace Square with ephemeral structures for the coronation of João VI (6 February 1818). Greek temples, Roman arches, and obelisks were the fashion for this kind of urban decoration in public festivities, after which they were destroyed. Montigny operated a private school of architecture until 1824, when Emperor Pedro I finally ordered that the construction of the Academy of Fine Arts, where Montigny held his lectures, be concluded.

See alsoArchitecture: Architecture to 1900; French Artistic Mission.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adolfo Morales De Los Rios, Filho, Grandjean de Montigny e a evolucão da arte brasileira (1941).

Affonso De Escragnolle Taunay, A missão artística de 1816 (1956).

Additional Bibliography

Schultz, Kirsten. Tropical Versailles: Empire, Monarchy, and the Portuguese Royal Court in Rio de Janeiro, 1808–1821. New York: Routledge, 2001.

                             Maria Beatriz Nizza da Silva