Valentin FOULQUIER
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Painter, engraver and illustrator.
Valentin Foulquier practised a trade the nineteenth century had just invented: illustrator. The book was becoming democratic, images were needed, and engraving was becoming a learned industry. He illustrated the Comtesse de Ségur as readily as Molière, Bossuet and Stendhal: the children's library and the scholar's in the same hands. His marble slab is carved like an unrolled parchment, and a bas-relief depicts a palette.
The story
Born in Paris in 1822, Jean Antoine Valentin Foulquier made his career in a trade the nineteenth century invented: illustration. Books were reaching everyone, images were needed, and engraving became a learned industry.
He illustrated the Comtesse de Ségur — the seventy-five vignettes of “L'Auberge de l'Ange-Gardien” — but also Molière, Bossuet and Stendhal: the children's shelf and the scholar's, in the same hands.
He painted and engraved on his own account as well, showing at the Salon like most of his fellows, without ever leaving the illustration work that kept him.
He died at L'Isle-Adam on 6 October 1896, in that Oise valley where a whole generation of painters spent its summers.
He lies in Division 72, avenue Circulaire, third row, under one of the most carefully made monuments of that quarter: a stone bust signed by Charles Pillet, a relief in the shape of a palette, and a marble slab worked to look like an unrolled parchment.
The grave
One of the most elaborate monuments in Division 72: a stele topped by a stone bust by the sculptor Charles Pillet, a bas-relief carved in the shape of a painter's palette, and a marble slab treated as an unrolled parchment — the palette for the painter, the parchment for the illustrator. The inscription names both trades: “Valentin FOULQUIER, painter and engraver, 1822-1896”, followed by “Adeline Amélie FOULQUIER, née DUBON”.
On site, do not miss
The marble slab is carved like an unrolled parchment, and the bas-relief like a palette: the monument tells of two trades, the illustrator and the painter.
Visitors' questions
Where is Valentin Foulquier's grave?
In Division 72, avenue Circulaire, third row. It is one of the most elaborate monuments in the sector: a stone bust signed Charles Pillet, a painter's palette carved in bas-relief, a marble slab cut in the shape of an unrolled parchment.
Jean ReynaudWhat did Valentin Foulquier illustrate?
George Sand and the Countess of Ségur — the two ends of the nineteenth-century readership: the rustic novel and the children's bookshelf. Illustration was then a new trade, born of the book's arrival in every home.
Alfred AssolantWho sculpted his bust?
Charles Pillet, whose stone bust tops the stele. Below it, a bas-relief carved in the shape of a painter's palette: the monument states the trade, something most artists' graves in the cemetery refrain from doing.
James PradierWhere did Valentin Foulquier die?
At L'Isle-Adam, in the Val-d'Oise, on 1 January 1896. The Oise valley was the summer haunt of a whole generation of painters — Daubigny's, Corot's, and Louis Lemaire's, who spent his summers at Parmain. Foulquier died there on the first day of 1896.
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