Jacques-Laurent Agasse

Jacques- Laurent Agasse ( born April 24, 1767 in Geneva, † December 27, 1849 in London) was a Swiss animal and landscape painter.

Jacques- Laurent was born as the son of the merchant Agasse Philippe and Catherine Audéoud in Geneva. He received his first art training at the Geneva Drawing School ( Ecole de dessin d'après nature ). 1786, he went to Paris at age 19 to educate yourself in the studio of Jacques -Louis David. He studied animal anatomy and dissection at the vet school and at the Natural History Museum. Because of the French Revolution, he returned to Geneva. Among his first works include papercut silhouettes in the style of Jean -Daniel Huber.

Agasse learned the rich George Pitt, Lord Rivers of future, , with whom he traveled to Great Britain and the English Painting discovered. Back in Geneva, Agasse worked together with his childhood friends Firmin Massot and Wolfgang -Adam Töpffer. They painted together rich animated landscapes, each contributed the part that he did best, animals, people, landscapes (eg The horse market in Gaillard ). Together with Firmin Massot (1766-1849) and Adam -Wolfgang Töpffer (1766-1847) Jacques- Laurent Agasse is one of the most important representatives of the Geneva school of the late 18th and early 19th century.

In 1800 he established himself with the support of Lord Rivers in London as an animal painter. He soon became famous for its horses and dogs representations. He also painted wild and exotic animals that he observed in the London menageries. From 1801 to 1845 he exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy from. One of his most outstanding works is the stud of Lord Rivers of Stratfield Saye in ( 1806 ). From 1810 on he lived in George Booth, whose children served as a model for the genre pictures. He also has pictures of the Thames painted, biology publications illustrated and temporarily devoted later portraiture. Agasse earned a living with his art, but has never become rich. He remained a bachelor all his life.