Alphonse de Cailleux

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Alphonse de Cailleux, in full Alexandre-Alphonse-Achille, vicomte de Cailloux[1] (Rouen, 31 December 1788 — 24 May 1876) was a painter, connoisseur and arts administrator who became director of the Musée du Louvre and all the royal museums of France. Under the Bourbon Restauration he was attached to the reconstituted royal household (the maison du roi). As secrétaire général des Musées royaux he shared a carriage with Charles Nodier,[2] Jean Alaux and Victor Hugo at the coronation of Charles X in 1825. In 1836 he was appointed directeur adjoint at the Louvre, where he assisted the increasingly debilitated Louis Nicolas Philippe Auguste de Forbin; at Forbin's death he was appointed directeur général des beaux-arts, a precursor of the position of Minister of Fine Arts. In 1845 he was elected a membre libre (not being an artist himself) of the Académie des Beaux-Arts of the Institut de France. He was also a chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur. In February 1848, as revolt erupted and Louis Philippe abdicated, this confirmed royalist resigned his posts.

His portrait, attributed to Georges Rouget, is at the Musée de Versailles.[3]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ The spelling de Cailleux is more common.
  2. ^ With Nodier and Baron Isidore-Juste-Séverin Taylor he collaborated that same year, writing the section on Normandy in Taylor's Voyages pittoresques et romantiques dans l'ancienne France (Paris: Firmin Didot) 1825. Ingres mentioned it when he sent a letter of recommendation to introduce Cailleux to his patron Jacques-Louis Leblanc at Florence, 16 March 1825 (Hans Naef and Claus Virch, "Ingres to M. Leblanc: An Unpublished Letter" The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin New Series, 29.4 [December 1970], pp. 178-184).
  3. ^ (Ministère de la culture)