The Handsome Michallon

Leon Cogniet (French, 1794-1880)
Portrait of Michallon, about 1818-19
Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Orléans
image: http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/achille-etna-michallon


What a handsome young man! I started out looking for a work by the painter Achille-Etna Michallon (1796-1822), the subject of our painting today and quickly discovered this portrait. This young man was only ever handsome as he sadly, only made it to the age of 26 due to illness.

A quick search for additional work by Cogniet shows that this may be, in my humble opinion of course, one of his better works. I seem to only find his portraits aesthetically pleasing, as he captures a wonderful face. More works... and yes, my source is Google images as I can't find more than a couple of his works in any one place. This may also be due to the fact that Cogniet was an academic painter, never my first love.