Editing Thomas Couture

{{short description|French painter (1815–1879)}}
{{more citations needed|date=November 2018}}
{{Infobox artist
| name                      = Thomas Couture
| image                     = Thomas Couture Autoritratto.jpg
| caption                   = Thomas Couture, self-portrait
| birth_date                = {{birth date|df=yes|1815|12|21}}
| birth_place               = [[Senlis, Oise]], France
| death_date                = {{death date and age|df=yes| 1879 |3|30|1815|12|21}}
| death_place               = [[Villiers-le-Bel]], Val-d'Oise, France
| resting_place             = Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris, France
| resting_place_coordinates =
| known_for                 = Painting, author
| training                  = École des Arts et Métiers
| movement                  =
| notable_works             = ''Romans in the Decadence of the Empire''
| patrons                   = 
}}
[[File:The grave of Thomas Couture, Pere Lachaise Cemetery, Paris.jpg|thumb|255px|The grave of Thomas Couture, Pere Lachaise Cemetery, Paris]]
[[File:Thomas Couture Carjat BNF.jpg|thumb|150px|Photographic portrait, by [[Étienne Carjat]], ca.1860]]
'''Thomas Couture''' ({{IPA|fr|tɔma kutyʁ}}; 21 December 1815 &ndash; 30 March 1879) was a French [[history painting|history painter]] and teacher. He taught such later luminaries of the art world as [[Édouard Manet]], [[Henri Fantin-Latour]], [[John La Farge]],<ref>Wilkinson, Burke. ''The Life and Works of Augustus Saint-Gaudens'', Dover Publications, Inc., New York. p. 79.</ref> [[Pierre Puvis de Chavannes]], John Ward Dunsmore,<ref>{{cite web | url=https://emuseum.nyhistory.org/objects/15356/portrait-of-thomas-couture-18151879-on-his-deathbed | title=Portrait of Thomas Couture (1815-1879) on His Deathbed }}</ref> [[Karel Javůrek]], [[William Morris Hunt]],<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.2578.html | title=Artist Info }}</ref> and [[Joseph-Noël Sylvestre]].

==Life==
===Early life and education===
Couture was born at [[Senlis, Oise]], France.  When he was 11 his family moved to Paris, where he would study at the industrial arts school ([[École des Arts et Métiers]]) and later at the [[École des Beaux-Arts]].

===Art and teaching career===
He failed the prestigious [[Prix de Rome]] competition at the École six times, but he felt the problem was with the École, not himself. Couture finally did win the prize in 1837.

In 1840 he began exhibiting historical and genre pictures at the [[Paris Salon]], earning several medals for his works, in particular for his masterpiece, ''[[Romans During the Decadence]]'' (1847). Shortly after this success, Couture opened an independent atelier meant to challenge the École des Beaux-Arts by turning out the best new history painters.

Couture's innovative technique gained much attention, and he received Government and Church commissions for murals during the late 1840s through the 1850s. He never completed the first two commissions, and the third met with mixed criticism. Upset by the unfavorable reception of his murals, in 1860 he left Paris, for a time returning to his hometown of Senlis, where he continued to teach young artists who came to him. In 1867 he thumbed his nose at the academic establishment by publishing a book on his own ideas and working methods called ''Méthode et entretiens d'atelier'' (''Method and Workshop Interviews''). It was also translated to ''Conversations on Art Methods'' in 1879, the year he died.

Asked by a publisher to write an autobiography, Couture responded: "Biography is the exaltation of personality—and personality is the scourge of our time."

===Death===
In 1879 he died at [[Villiers-le-Bel]], Val-d'Oise, and was interred in [[Père Lachaise Cemetery]], Paris.

==Selected paintings==
<gallery mode="packed" heights="140">
File:THOMAS COUTURE - Los Romanos de la Decadencia (Museo de Orsay, 1847. Óleo sobre lienzo, 472 x 772 cm).jpg|''[[The Romans in their Decadence]]'' (1847)
File:Portrait of a Seated Woman by Thomas Couture.jpg|''Portrait of a Seated Woman'' (1850-1855)<ref name = Nazi-1 /><ref name = Nazi-2 />
File:Thomas Couture-Anselm Feuerbach 1852.JPG|''[[Anselm Feuerbach]]'' (1852)
File:Thomas Couture - The Supper after the Masked Ball.jpg|''The Supper after the [[Masked ball|Masked Ball]]'' [1857]
File:Le Duel après le bal masqué - Thomas Couture - Wallace Collection.jpg|''The Duel After the Masked Ball'' (1857)
File:Thomas Couture - Daydreams - Walters 3744.jpg|''Daydreams'' (1859).
File:Thomas Couture - Lawyer Going to Court - Walters 371204.jpg|''A Lawyer Going to Court'' (1860s)  
File:Thomas Couture, The Thorny Path (1873).jpg|''The Thorny Path'' (1872)
 
</gallery>

== Nazi-looted art in the Gurlitt collection ==
Couture’s ''Portrait of a Seated Woman'', (c.1850-1855), discovered in the [[Gurlitt Collection|Gurlitt trove]], was identified as having belonged to [[Georges Mandel]] from a small hole in the canvas. It was restituted to Mandel's heirs in 2019.<ref name = Nazi-1>{{Cite web |date=2020-09-24 |title=Nazi-Looted Thomas Couture Painting Returned to Heirs of French Jewish Leader Georges Mandel - Artsy News |url=https://www.artsy.net/news/artsy-editorial-nazi-looted-painting-cornelius-gurlitt-trove-returned-jewish-politicians-heirs |access-date=2022-02-20 |website= |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200924061627/https://www.artsy.net/news/artsy-editorial-nazi-looted-painting-cornelius-gurlitt-trove-returned-jewish-politicians-heirs |archive-date=24 September 2020 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name = Nazi-2>{{Cite web|title=Germany returns Nazi-looted work to French Jewish collector's heirs|url=https://lootedart.com/news.php?r=TFYPJN323241|access-date=2022-02-20|website=lootedart.com|quote=The portrait of a seated woman by 19th-century French painter Thomas Couture had been on display in a spectacular collection hoarded by Cornelius Gurlitt, the son of a Nazi-era art dealer. German Culture Minister Monika Gruetters presented the work to relatives of Mandel -- who was executed by French fascists near Paris in 1944 -- in a ceremony at the Martin Gropius Bau museum in Berlin.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=The Void at the Heart of 'Gurlitt: Status Report' |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/19/arts/design/the-void-at-the-heart-of-gurlitt-status-report.html |website=New York Times}}</ref>

==References==
<references/>

==Further reading==
* {{cite book |last1=Boime |first1=Albert |title=Thomas Couture and the Eclectic Vision |date=1980 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven |isbn=978-0300021585}}
*{{cite news |editor=O'Neill, J.| url=http://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15324coll10/id/102063 |work=Romanticism and The School of Nature: Nineteenth-century drawings and paintings from the Karen B. Cohen collection | location=New York | publisher=The Metropolitan Museum of Art | year=2000|title= Index}}

==External links==
{{Wikisource1911Enc|Couture, Thomas}}
*{{Commons-inline}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20120117035236/http://stephanekirkland.com/2011/09/thomas-couture/ Article on Thomas Couture]

{{Authority control (arts)}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Couture, Thomas}}
[[Category:19th-century French painters]]
[[Category:French male painters]]
[[Category:1815 births]]
[[Category:1879 deaths]]
[[Category:Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery]]
[[Category:Prix de Rome for painting]]
[[Category:Academic art]]
[[Category:19th-century painters of historical subjects]]
[[Category:People from Senlis]]
[[Category:19th-century French male artists]]