Adrien Dauzats

Adrien Dauzats (16 July 1804 – 18 February 1868) was a French landscape, genre painter and painter of Oriental subject matter. He travelled extensively throughout the Ottoman Empire and illustrated a number of books for the travel writer, Baron Taylor.

Life and career

Adrien Dauzats was born at Bordeaux in 1804. His father was a scenery painter at a Bordeaux theatre, and the boy grew up dreaming of becoming a scene painter. He became a pupil of Lacour at the École de Dessin. He was a frequent exhibitor at the Salon of genre subjects and interiors of churches, and was also a lithographer.

After completing his studies, in around 1829, he accompanied, Baron Taylor, a playwright, soldier and archaeologist to the Middle East and visited Egypt, Syria, Mount Sinai, Palestine and other locations, for the purpose of making illustrations for Baron Taylor's travel books, including: Voyages Pittoresques et Romantiques de l'ancienne France: 1820-63; Voyage Pittoresque en Espagne, en Portugal, et sur la côte d'Afrique, de Tanger à Tetouan: 1826-32; La Syrie, I'Egypte, la Palestine et la Judée: 1835-39, and other books.

After visiting Palestine, Syria, Mount Sinai and other locations, he began to produce works with Oriental themes. He was one of the first artists to paint the Orient "with scrupulous exactitude and impartiality." Following his second trip to the Middle East, he published a book, Quinze Jours au Sinai, which he co-authored with the novelist, Alexandre Dumas Snr, in which Dauzat's artistic vision set it apart from other Dumas works, and also separated it from most other travel books of the period.

On another trip to Spain in 1835, also with Baron Taylor, he met the engraver Pharamond Blanchard, who introduced Taylor and Dauzats to the prominent artistic de Madrazo family.