Charles Baugniet
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Charles-Louis Baugniet (27 February
1814 Brussels - 5 July 1886 Sèvres), was a Belgian painter,
lithographer and aquarellist.
He attended the Académie Royale des
Beaux-Arts in Brussels during 1827-29, where he studied under Joseph
Paelinck and Florent Willems. His first attempts lithography date
from 1827, and his reputation grew steadily with the appearance of
his first portraits in the magazine L'Artiste in 1833.
He collaborated with Louis Huard
from 1835-42 in producing a series of portraits of the Belgian House
of Representatives - Louis Huard finished only 6 portraits, Baugniet
doing the remainder.
This was followed in 1836 by a
series of 30 portraits of contemporary artists - "Les Artistes
Contemporains". Included were portraits of Louis Jéhotte, Louis
Gallait, Nicaise De Keyser, Jean-Baptiste Madou, Eugène Simonis,
Charles-Louis Verboeckhoven, Horace Vernet, Paul Delaroche and
Hippolyte Bellangé.
He was commissioned to do portraits
of the Belgian Royal Family, and this led to his appointment as
court painter in 1841.
In 1843 he moved to London where he
became a leading society portrait painter, creating a portrait of
Prince Albert in 1851. Later he often returned to London to do
portraits of celebrities such as Charles Dickens and the French
composer Hector Berlioz. Baugniet also designed the first Belgian
postage stamp, brought into circulation on 1 July 1849. The stamp
depicted Leopold I of Belgium after a painting by Lievin de Winne.
Baugniet settled in Paris in 1860. Almost overnight the invention
and development of photography strangled the traditional market of
lithographic portraits, forcing many of Baugniet's colleagues to
become professional photographers. Baugniet however concentrated on
producing paintings and portraits which displayed the studied
elegance of the Second French Empire, a genre that enjoyed great
popularity.
