Drawings by Alexandre Hesse

A pupil of Gros and a contemporary of Hippolyte Flandrin and Thomas Couture, Alexandre Hesse acquired a short-lived celebrity at the 1833 Salon with The Last Honours Paid to Titian. After this success, he specialised in historical painting.
From 1861 onwards, he dealt essentially with religious mural decoration, in particular in Parisian churches where Delacroix, Flandrin Gérôme and later Puvis de Chavannes were to paint.
About sixty preparatory studies, often very refined, of black stone and pastel on coloured papers, retraced the different stages of the elaboration of these painted compositions.