Alice Baron-Puyplat: wife of Marcel Lucien Baron

Joined with her husband, Paris aquatint etcher Marcel Lucien Baron at Père Lachaise cemetery, rests Alice Puyplat. So why not check "Benezit, dictionaire des peintres" ? 

Marie Alice Baron-Puyplat

(Paris 05-05-1880 – 1965 Paris)

“Graveur sur bois”: woodengraver. 

Student of her father Jules Puyplat (1843-1915) and of Mme. Corduan. Alice exhibited in the “Société Artistique de la gravure sur bois” and in the “Salon des Artistes Francais” earning a honourable mentioning and a Medal 3th Class.

She is mentioned for her engravings of: Chopin (after an unfinished painting by Eugene Delacroix, see here for the interesting history of a painting of George Sand and her lover Frédéric Chopin that was cut up once. Frederic now is in the Louvre, George is in a Denmark Museum. Once so close, in life and on canvas, now so far apart. The reunited couple (him playing the piano and her doing needlework, looking admiringly at his brilliant hands, is academical fiction. 

of: Hector Berlioz (after the painting by Honoré Daumier) 

and of a painting, “La Rieuse”, (girl smiling, after Rembrandt, probably  Saskia smiling ?). I could not find any of them. It would be nice to find examples of her work.

I suppose this is probably the first time in modern history some-one has ever looked into her artistic life.  

Mme Corduan took me some time to find (she’s not in the Artists Lexicons) but she is:

Augustine le Coursonnois Corduan 
(1836-1915)

“graveur sur bois” (woodengraver). 

She was 1886-1913 professor of wood-engraving for the young girls in the “Ecole special de dessin” in Paris.

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Alice Puyplat is the daughter of:

Jules Jacques Puyplat

(Cusset/Allier 1843-1915 Paris)

“Graveur sur bois”, woodengraver. Exhibited (in the Salon) and worked in Paris from 1877. Member of the “Artistes Francais” since 1893, “mention honourable” in 1880). Without knowing I’ve owned many of his engravings: he  engraved the earliest and many postage stamps for the French colonies.

And with this incredible demonstration of skill a woodengraving, copying a painting by Claude Lorain (1602-1682), much admired by William Turner, he lead and introduced me to Lorain's  many and brilliant “Etudes d’arbres”, study of trees.

With his friend Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) he must have spent many hours practising drawing trees with pen and ink. It looks sooooo easy. But isn't !

Contemporary landscape painters to Rembrandt (1606-1669) -above- they knew that how to draw trees well makes all the difference.  

Jules Pluyplat as a wood engraver also copied a painting by sculptor Theophile Barrau (1848-1913). This again leading me to one of the copies of Barrau's "Suzanne". For those who never visited the restaurant of Musée d'Orsay: so very beautiful !

Jules Puyplat was a contemporary of painter, illustrator, engraver and academy professor Luc-Olivier Merson (1846-1920) -below in his studio- who had taught also his (Jules' ) son   , Alice’s brother and Marcel Barons brother in law:

Albert Eduard Puyplat

(Paris 06-06-1876 - ??)

“Peintre” according to Benezit, but also an engraver and illustrator. I think he held with his father a respected position within the postage stamp design business because I found a stamp designed by A. Puyplat too (Timbre Tax Indochine, 1908). And an iconic advertising poster (below). 

He had been active, like his brother-in-law Marcel Baron, in Montmartre according to these naughty illustrations (see the subtle placed copy of notorious Gil Blas Magazine on the bedside table) that tells of a story in this artistic arrondissement of Paris. 

Before showing some more examples of Marcel Baron's better Paris city-views I think this trip gives us some more understanding of the times and world of the artist Marcel Lucien Baron. All information on the Baron and Puyplat family is welcomed and will be shared in this Blog.

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Chiseled in the same monument and in the same grave (plot) are resting:

Jean Joseph Julien Godon

(1839-1915) 

and his first and second wife. I suspect a family relationship here because he is also mentioned in Benezit: painter of "nature more", still-life, and a decorator. He also wrote a book that saw several editions and that was translated in English on colors and the technique of painting on linnen (as a decorational/mural painter). He also exhibited in the Salon in 1868. 

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All pictures borrowed freely from the Internet for friendly, educational and non commercial use only.