This exquisite flower painting epitomises the achievements of the Lyons school of flower painting in the first half of the nineteenth century, and must have been painted very soon after Thierriat replaced the great but mercurial Antoine Berjon as ‘Professeur Classe de Fleur’ at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, a post which he held until 1853. He was a man of wide interests and civic duties, and certainly the most influential teacher of flower painting, with over four hundred pupils. His appointment as director of the city’s museum in 1831 further distracted him from his own work. Thus, despite a very long and active life, he left behind few flower or still life paintings; hence their rarity today. Although not officially a pupil of Berjon, there is no doubt that Thierriat was the heir to the great artist in so far as anyone could be. In this, small, sophisticated painting he succeeds, like his mentor, in expressing himself through his subject matter with calm and mysterious subtlety.
We are grateful to John Whitehead for confirming that the faïence vase was a product of the Utzschneider ceramics factory at Sarreguemines in north-eastern France.
 

Exhibition:

Paris, Salon, 1824.