Jean-Adolphe BEAUCÉ
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Battle painter.
A battle painter, he worked from life and followed the columns: Algeria, Crimea, Italy, Syria, Mexico, then the Army of the Rhine besieged in Metz in 1870. The same pen illustrated “The Three Musketeers” and “Notre-Dame de Paris”. His bronze portrait by Devaulx was a gift from a friend.
The story
Jean Adolphe Beaucé was born in Paris on 1 August 1818. A painter and illustrator of battle scenes and army life, he chose to work from the thing itself: he followed the troops on campaign instead of staging their battles in a studio.
Algeria, the Crimea, Italy, Syria, Mexico: he was there, marching with the columns. In 1870 he followed the Army of the Rhine and was shut up with it inside Metz, which gave him a view of the collapse that few official painters ever had.
Out of those campaigns came “La Prise de la smala d'Abd el-Kader”, “La Mort du sergent Blandan”, “La Bataille de Solférino”, “Le Combat de Palikao”, “La Prise du fort de San Xavier devant Puebla” — a chronicle in paint of the wars of the Second Empire.
He also illustrated the novels of Alexandre Dumas, among them “The Three Musketeers”, and Victor Hugo's “Notre-Dame de Paris”: the same line served the pitched battle and the cloak-and-dagger romance.
He died at Boulogne on 11 July 1875. The bust set on his grave in Division 49 is older than his death: Devaulx had carved it in 1855 and dedicated it ‘à son ami J. A. Beaucé’ — to his friend.
The grave
A bronze bust signed François Théodore Devaulx, and a date that surprises: 1855, twenty years before the painter's death, with the dedication “to his friend J. A. Beaucé”. The portrait is thus a gift of friendship turned monument. Beneath it, a bas-relief in which palms support a cross of the Legion of Honour. The inscription reads like a service record: “To Jean Adolphe Beauce, history painter attached to the French armies. Africa, Italy, Syria, Mexico, France” — the name engraved without the accent the reference works give it.
On site, do not miss
The dedication engraved on the bust — “to his friend J. A. Beaucé”, 1855 — and the list of campaigns beneath the name: Africa, Italy, Syria, Mexico, France.
Visitors' questions
Where is Jean-Adolphe Beaucé's grave?
In Division 49, Chemin Casimir-Delavigne, third row, in the central part of the cemetery. A bronze bust crowns it, above a bas-relief in which palm fronds hold up a cross of the Legion of Honour.
Antoine-Louis BaryeWhat did Jean-Adolphe Beaucé paint?
The wars of the Second Empire, from life: “La Prise de la smala d'Abd el-Kader”, “La Bataille de Solférino”, “Le Combat de Palikao”, “La Prise du fort de San Xavier devant Puebla”. He marched with the columns rather than reconstructing the scenes in his studio.
François BazinWhich campaigns did he follow?
Algeria, the Crimea, Italy, Syria and Mexico, then the Army of the Rhine in 1870, with which he was besieged in Metz. The epitaph lists them like a service record: “Afrique, Italie, Syrie, Mexique, France” — Africa, Italy, Syria, Mexico, France.
Paul BaudryIs the bust on his grave posthumous?
No, and that is what makes it unusual: François Théodore Devaulx carved it in 1855, twenty years before the painter's death, with the dedication “à son ami J. A. Beaucé” — to his friend J. A. Beaucé. A portrait between friends that became a funerary monument.
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