There is very little biographic information about Duplessis, although some 150 paintings are known by him: he was active at the end of the 18th century in Versailles and Paris.

 

He was an excellent craftsman, who was strongly influenced stylistically and in the choice of his subjects by the 17th century Dutch painter Philips Wouwerman.

 

 

French painter, draughtsman and aquarellist.

Very little is known about our painter: he was born in Versailles and active in his hometown and in Paris at the very end of the 18th century.

 

Sometimes he is also called Claude Michel Hamon Duplessis.

 

He was a painter of military subjects and of resting travellers, often represented with a ruined building in the background. He was an excellent horse painter. Well over 100 paintings are known by Duplessis.

 

He was a pupil of Jean-Baptiste Descamps (1706 / 1791), most probably in his Academy in Rouen, in Normandy.

 

Our painter participated at the Salon de Paris from 1791 until 1799.

The last archive mention is from one year later, 1800.

 

Duplessis had one well-known pupil, Jacques François Joseph Swebach-Desfontaines (1769 – 1823). He was strongly influenced by Duplessis. Besides paintings he also made designs for the porcelain manufactures of Sèvres in France and of Saint Petersburg in Russia.

 

I know only of two museums that hold paintings by Duplessis: 

- the Fine Arts Museum of Besançon has “The trumpet”, 37 X 45 cm.

- the Musée d’art et d’histoire Baron Gérard in Bayeux also has an oil painting by him.

 

 

Duplessis was an excellent French painter, who was strongly influenced by 17th century Dutch landscape painters, especially by the scenes with resting travellers, huntsmen or shepherds by the great Phillps Wouwerman (Haarlem 1619 – 1668 Haarlem). Have a look in my comparative paintings at the Wouwerman painting from the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg; it used to belong to the private collection of Tsarina Catharina the Great. 

 

One can but wonder if Duplessis’s artistic training with Jean-Baptiste Descamps influenced him in his choice for a Dutch-influenced style of painting. Indeed Descamps was born in Dunkirk, which was a Franco-Flemish town. Between 1753 and 1763 he had published a series of 4 volumes about Dutch, Flemish and German painters.

 

 

Because it is an excellent example of the influence that Philips Wouwerman had until well into the 19th century in Holland, Flanders, France and Germany.