Bellangé’s principal claim to fame was as a painter of battle scenes, the majority of them set in the Napoleonic era. In 1816, while studying at Gros’ studio, he met Nicolas-Toussaint Charlet, and like him began to produce litographs. Bellangé’s series in this medium included military uniforms, humorous scenes of the Grande Armée, raw recruits and worn-out veterans: he also provided illustration for Béranger’s Songs. He made his debut at the Salon in 1822, where in later years he was awarded several medals. In 184 he was made a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, after having scored a major triumph at the salon with The Return from Elba (Amiens, Musée Picardie). E was elevated to the rank of Officier in 1861. He carried out major commissions for Louis-Philippe in the Galerie Historique at Versailles, and was curator of the Musée de Rouen from 1837 to 1854.
Sign-painters and old soldiers were stoch figures of fun in nineteenth-century art. In this watercolor of 1841 Bellangé has clearly followed the example of his friend Charlet, who portrayed sign-painters as tenth-rate artists who were just about capable of painting words on a tavern wall. Many of them are also shown drinking while they work.
Here we have the standard type of sign-painter: a little old man with striped stockings, spectacles perched on the end of his nose, and a cap. Although the “true” artist occupied a more elevated position on the social ladder, there does not seem to be any deeper significance to the fact that he has been placed on a higher level in this watercolor. The only thing that distinguishes him from his humbler colleague is his beret, and he is not leaning out of the window in a patronizing way, but is actually engaged in a discussion with the old man, to whom he is showing a painting of an amorous couple in historical dress.
The painter has interrupted his work on a wall sign, and although only the letters “AU DIE” are visible they undoubtedly form the beginning of the popular tavern name, “Au Dieu Bacchus,” matching the figure of the young god brandishing a bottle on the wall below. In 1872 Meissonnier produced a genre piece entitles Le peintre d’enseignes, in which the sign-painter is working on a large painting of Bacchus astride a barrel. The bottle of wine behind him is presumably his Muse. The wall-signs in these works tend to refer to drink (a recurring theme), the Napoleonic legend, or to political events of the day.
This appears to be Bellangé’s only treatment of the subject. Charlet, on the other hand, produced many such caricatures of the craft painter for his print series of 1823, 1824 and 1826. In one of the 1823 prints the sign-painter is perched on a ladder draining a bottle of wine, while the inscription tells us: “j’aime la couleur” (“I like a spot of color”). Charlet also placed the sign-painter on a ladder in a watercolor entitled Le peintre d’enseignes now in the Musée de Pontoise.
( Wiepke Loos)
