André Perrachon was a prominent and well-loved French painter of flora, considered as one of the finest proponents of still life to have emerged from the ancient city of Lyon. He was a rose specialist and praised for his “lightness of touch”, which recalled “the masters of the Netherlands.”
Perrachon undertook his early tuition at the local École des Beaux-Arts in Lyon, before heading for the buzzing ateliers of Paris. Here, he trained with two masters - François Lepage (1796-1871) and Pierre-Adrien Chabal-Dussurgey (1819-1902) at the École des Gobelins. The latter was the director of the flower painting workshop at the Manufacture Nationale des Gobelins, a long-established tapestry factory.
Both Lepage and Chabal-Dussurgey were talented still life painters, yet offered two distinct styles. Lepage’s approach was somewhat grander and more akin to the 17th-century Dutch flower painters, whereas Chabal-Dussurgey offered light, buoyancy, and delicacy. Combined, the pair provided the foundations of Perrachon’s impressive career and both would leave their mark. His early works, such as a flower-piece from 1858, which is in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Saint-Etienne, appears to display a traditional bias, while his later productions, such as this piece, are decidedly fresher.
His talent was evident during the formative stages of his career and, by the age of 25, he’d debuted at the salons of Paris and Lyon. Already, he was establishing himself as an artist of considerable merit. As his career progressed, he became renowned for roses, above all else, and his ‘fragrant’ renditions soon graced the walls of many a Lyonnais drawing-room. His trademark style often sets the flora amid a dewy mist, which conveys a heightened sense of romantic abandon. As if one’s eyes are welling with tears following an impromptu marriage proposal.
As fashions shifted during the 1870s and 1880s, rich yellow, orange and pink blooms became particularly ‘en vogue’ and Perrachon duly obliged. Even during the colder months, these were available via sophisticated hot-houses.
In 1880, following an exhibition at the Salon Lyonnais, a critic at the Lyon-revue celebrated his roses “of an admirable freshness and transparency” which appeared “always damp with rain and bathed in an opal atmosphere”. Indeed, it was a sentiment echoed by many.
Towards the end of his career, he was elected as president of the Société Lyonnaise des Beaux-Arts, having developed a considerable reputation both as an artist and a teacher. His students included Claudia Bret-Charbonnier, Thérèse Guérin, Marie Girard-Nauwelaers, Marie Hodieux-Belous, Mathilde Mitton and his grandson, Joseph Perrachon (1883-1969). He’s represented at the Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon and the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Saint-Etienne.
Exhibited
Paris Salon, Salon du Printemps at Lyon, The Society of Friends of the Arts of the Loire Department (Saint-Etienne), Exposition Universelle de Dijon (1858).
Public Collections
Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon, Musée des Beaux-Arts in Saint-Etienne.
Timeline
1827
Born in Lyon to Louis Perrachon and Marie Aimé Perrachon (nee Morelon).
Trained at the École des Beaux-Arts in Lyon.
1847
Trained in Paris with François Lepage (1796-1871) and Pierre-Adrien Chabal-Dussurgey (1819-1902) at the École des Gobelins.
Debuted at the Lyon Salon.
1852
Debuted at the Paris Salon.
C. 1858
Returned to Lyon.
1859
Received an honourable mention at the Paris Salon.
1863
Received an honourable mention at the Paris Salon.
1887
Elected president of the Société Lyonnaise des Beaux-Arts.
1908
Died in Lyon.
Reviews
Gazette des beaux-arts (1859)
“The paintings of Mr. Perrachon are extremely sought after in Lyon, and one can only give encouragement to this young and conscientious artist, who devotes to pure art the short rests that industrial art gives him.”
Revue de France (1877)
“Mr. André Perrachon, born on the banks of the Rhone, has strong and lively qualities, a skill of hand and a lightness of touch that recalls the masters of the Netherlands. He exhibited a bouquet of flowers, mainly roses, grouped in disorder and crowning a magnificent vase of chased silver, itself placed on a yellow copper plate. The half-lights of the second and third planes are very well graduated, in the manner of Daniel Seghers; and corollas, wandering branches, give lightness to the contours. A brown drapery, dark and vague, serves as a background for these plant splendors. Very well combined effects of light play in the mass. The coloring has a liveliness, a dazzling freshness, and the author took pleasure in showing the resources of his palette, by sacrificing the contours a little. I would like more precise lines, a clearer drawing, to create the illusion when you approach, and we like to see these delicate works up close, these brilliant and graceful paintings.”
Obituaries
The Athenaeum
“M. Andre Perrachon, the venerable flower painter of Lyons, who died in his eighty-first year, was a well-known exhibitor at the Salon for almost half a century, and was one of the founders of the Societe Lyonnaise des Beaux-Arts, of which he was the first President in 1888. Examples of his work are in the galleries of Lyons, Toulouse, Saint-Etienne, and elsewhere.”