Alfred de Dreux

ALFRED DE DREUX 1810 - Paris - 1860 Alfred de Dreux was born in France, the son of an architect. He first studied with Léon Cogniet and then entered the atelier of Eugène Isabey. Throughout his career, however, de Dreux’s work was greatly influenced by Théodore Géricault, who was a close friend of his uncle, the painter Dedreux-Dorcey. In 1831, de Dreux exhibited Interieur d'Ecurie at the Paris Salon, which won him immediate fame. In 1840 he began his celebrated series of portraits of horses from the famous stables of the duc d'Orléans. Following the Revolution in 1848, the French royal family emigrated to England where de Dreux frequently visited them, painting many equestrian portraits of the exiled Emperor Napoleon III and his sons. He returned to France and was commissioned to paint a portrait of Napoleon III in 1859 (Musee de l’Armée, Paris). A dispute arose over this equestrian portrait and in March 1860 de Dreux was killed in a duel by Comte Fleury, Napoleon’s principal aide-de-camp. The work of Alfred de Dreux is represented in the Louvre, Paris; the Musée Camondo, Paris and museums in Bordeaux, Dijon and Chantilly.