Achille Benouville

ACHILLE BENOUVILLE (Paris, France, 1815- 1891).
"View of the Church of Santa Croce di Gerusalemme in Rome", 1853.
Gouache and watercolor on paper.
Signed and dated in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 28 x 45 cm; 48 x 64 cm (frame).
Landscape starring the Church of Santa Cruz in Jerusalem. According to Christian tradition, the basilica was consecrated around 325 to house the relics of the Passion of Jesus Christ brought to Rome from the Holy Land by the Empress Helena, mother of the Roman emperor Constantine I. The floor of the basilica is supposed to have been covered with soil from Jerusalem, so it acquired the title in Hierusalem; it is not dedicated to the Holy Cross of Jerusalem, but the basilica was considered in a certain sense "in Jerusalem".

Achille Benouville was a French landscape painter, best known for his Italian landscapes. Along with his younger brother François Léon, he completed his apprenticeship first in the workshop of François-Édouard Picot and then in that of Léon Cogniet. He began his career by painting various landscapes around Paris, Compiègne and Fontainebleau, until he exhibited for the first time at the Salon in 1834. He then enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and won the second prize in Rome, in the category of historical landscape. In the following years, he traveled three times to Italy, once in the company of his friend and mentor Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, with whom he shared his Roman studio in 1843.
In 1845, he won the Prix de Rome with the painting "Ulysses and Nausicaa". He then went to Rome, where he stayed for three years at the Villa Medicis guesthouse. At the end of the period that awarded him the prize, Benouville decided to stay in Italy, where he practiced his art for twenty-five years, although he continued to exhibit in the Parisian Salons. Benouville remained faithful to the historical landscape genre throughout his life, in the wake of Claude Lorrain, although over the years he refined his technique and his expressive manner, which at first was clearly academic. His light effects reveal the influence of Corot and were particularly appreciated. This is very evident in some of his works, such as "View of a Roman Villa". Benouville also paid more attention to precision and clarity of detail than Corot himself.