Pingret, Édouard Henri Théophile (1788–1875)

Édouard Henri Théophile Pingret (b. 30 December 1788; d. 1875), French painter. Pingret was born in Saint-Quentin, France. At the age of fourteen Pingret's father sent him to the studio of Jacques-Louis David, where he excelled as an apprentice. Two years later he went to Rome and frequented the Academy of San Lucas. In 1831 he received his first gold medal at an exhibition, and in 1839 he was awarded the rank of chevalier in the Legion of Honor. He spent time in Tripoli, Morocco, and Algeria, and in 1850, under the advice of Prince Joinville, Pingret traveled to Mexico as a representative of the American Maritime Transportation Company, a French firm, to resell stock belonging to Joinville and the Pignatari family, heirs to the marquisate of Oaxaca. At age sixty-two, Pingret met in Veracruz the printer Ernst Masson, who instilled in him an interest in archaeology. He gathered an interesting collection of pre-Hispanic and colonial pieces, which he later took back with him to Europe.

While in Mexico in 1852, Pingret exhibited for the first time at the Academia de San Carlos a group of paintings with European themes, and the following year demonstrated what he had seen and appreciated in Mexico by exhibiting a series of folkloric works. His scenes of the interiors of kitchens were rapidly copied by his students and exhibited at the academy. Pingret's work also includes landscapes and contemporary historical paintings, making him one of the visual editors of life in the middle part of the nineteenth century. He died in Saint-Quentin.

See alsoArt: The Nineteenth Century .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Luis Ortiz Macedo, Édouard Pingret: Un pinto romántico francés que retrató el México del mediar del siglo XIX (1989).

Additional Bibliography

Ortiz Macedo, Luis. Édouard Pingret; Pintor románico del siglo XIX. México, D.F.: CONACULTA, 2004.

                                   Esther Acevedo