Louis Gauffier

Louis Gauffier - Portrait of Dr. Thomas Penrose, oil on canvas

Rest on the Flight into Egypt, oil on canvas of 1793

Louis Gauffier (1762–1801) was a French painter. Born in Poitiers, he studied in Paris with the history painter Hughes Taraval before entering the Prix de Rome competition which he won in 1779 (La Cananéenne aux pieds de Jésus-Christ). Apart from a brief return to Paris in 1789 he remained in Italy for the remainder of his life. Gauffier initially settled in Rome, but popular unrest following the execution of Louis XVI led him to flee with his wife to Florence. He could not receive patronage from France because he was branded a royalist, and this curtailed his career as a history painter. Instead, he painted landscapes, which he sold to English tourists. When French troops occupied Florence in 1799, he began to paint officers' portraits.

Gauffier died in Florence in 1801.

References

• Philip Conisbee, Sarah Faunce, and Jeremy Strick. In the Light of Italy: Corot and Early Open-Air Painting. New Haven; Yale University Press, 1996.