Constantin Troyon (1810 – 1865), painter

1^st image: Soirée; 2^nd: Nadar (1855); 3^rd: image 3 caption; 4^th: caricature by Nadar (1850s);
(Alternative: Viollet-le-Duc)

Painter Constant Troyon's name was mentioned in an article discovered in 2024. Unfortunately, there are no records that he attended one of de Nieuwerkerke's¹⁶ Louvre-soirées. The shy painter hated the city, so it is doubtful if he would accept an invitation. Giraud never drew his caricature. His only contact in this (imaginary) depiction of a vendredi-soirée is Victor Regnault^50a, the father of his friend the painter Henri Regnault.

In absence of family-wealth (he became orphan at the age of seven), Constant Troyon made a living creating flower decorations for the Sèvres porcelain factory where his father worked.
Impressionist painter Renoir followed the same path three decades later. A pure chance meeting in the Saint-Cloud forest with the elder painter Roqueplan changed Troyon’s life. Roqueplan became his teacher and sponsor.
Together with contemporaries like Theodore Roussseau (unrelated to still-life painter Philippe Rousseau⁰¹), and Dupré, Troyon dissociated himself from the realistic French school of painters, and started to paint landscapes in the late 1830s. Their gathering place near Fontainebleau became known as Barbizon.

Uncertain about his style, and not always favorably received at the Salons, he went on a trip to Holland in 1847. There, he studied 17th century animal painters Paulus Potter and Albert Cuyp. It stimulated him to change from rural settings to animal painting. Through these animals, he depicted not merely a poetic landscape but visualized a more complete impression of country-life. Troyon was a relentless worker, making long hours when he sketched and traveled, and created as much as eighteen paintings per month in the rest of the year.