Eugène Stanislas Alexandre Bléry

1805 Fontainebleau – 1887 Paris

Eugène Bléry, the son of a mathematics professor at the École militaire, initially trained to become a university teacher, his artistic activities being of secondary interest. Around 1830, he resolved to devote himself exclusively to art and was given his first lessons by Jean François Hue and Jules-Louis-Philippe Cogniet. Bléry worked almost entirely as an etcher. Virtually all his preliminary studies were made from nature and occasionally he even drew his design straight onto the plate en plein air. He found his motifs in the picturesque forests of Les Vaux-de-Cernay and his native Fontainebleau as well as in Savoy, the Auvergne and Switzerland. The unflagging patronage of the Montalivet family also enabled the artist to take personal charge of the publication of his numerous nature studies, which were distinguished by their botanical precision.