Pierre-Joseph Dedreux-Dorcy

The Death of Géricault, an 1824 painting by Ary Scheffer depicting the death of Théodore Géricault, with his friends Louis Bro and Pierre-Joseph Dedreux-Dorcy (seated in the front).

Pierre-Joseph Dedreux-Dorcy, a French genre painter, was born in Paris in 1789. He was the younger brother of the architect Pierre-Anne Dedreux (winner of the 1815 Prix de Rome),^[1] and uncle of the painter Alfred de Dreux. He studied for some time under Guérin. His paintings, one of which, called 'Bajazet et le Berger,' is in the Museum of Bordeaux, are in the style of Greuze. He also painted, together with Géricault, a picture called 'La Baigneuse'. He died at Bellevue in 1874. His surname was Dedreux, but he was usually called Dorcy.

Portrait of Count Charles-Edgar de Mornay (1803-1878), undated, now at the Musée d'Orsay

Dedreux-Dorcy was one of the closest friends of Géricault, having met each other in the atelier of Guérin.^[2] When Géricault fell ill after a fall of his horse, he stayed with Dorcy for over a year. Dorcy afterwards was one of the few friends of Géricault present when he died on 18 January 1824.^[3] In 1824, after Géricault's death, Dedreux-Dorcy bought his masterpiece The Raft of the Medusa for 6000 francs, while the French government, bidding for the Louvre, wasn't willing to bid more than 5000 Francs. He afterwards declined an offer to resell it to an American for thrice the price he paid, and sold it one week later to the French government for the same 6000 francs, on the condition that it was to be placed in the Louvre.^[4][5]

Portrait of Bon-Adrien Jeannot de Moncey in 1792, painted in 1834, now at the Palace of Versailles

References

This article incorporates text from the article "DEDREUX, Pierre-Joseph" in Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers by Michael Bryan, edited by Robert Edmund Graves and Sir Walter Armstrong, an 1886–1889 publication now in the public domain.

1. Gautier, Théophile (1991). Correspondance générale, Volume 5 (in French). Librairie Droz. p. 404. ISBN 978-2-600-03639-9. Retrieved 20 May 2011.
2. Chenique, Bruno (2003). La vie romantique: hommage à Loïc Chotard (in French). Presses Paris Sorbonne. p. 592. ISBN 978-2-84050-197-8.
3. Blanc, Charles; Marius Chaumelin; Georges Lafenestre; Paul Mantz; Auguste Demmin (1863). Histoire des peintres de toutes les écoles: École française; 3, Volumes 2-3. Renouard. p. 10. Retrieved 20 May 2011.
4. "Géricault". The Illustrated magazine of art. Alexander Montgomery. 2: 283. 1853.
5. Clément, Charles (1868). Géricault: étude biographique et critique, avec le catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre du maître (in French). Didier,. p. 426. Retrieved 20 May 2011.