Denis Auguste Marie Raffet (March 2, 1804 – February 16, 1860) was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 illustrator and lithographer. He was a student of Nicolas Toussaint Charlet

Nicolas Toussaint Charlet

Nicolas Toussaint Charlet , French designer and painter, more especially of military subjects, was born in Paris....

, and was a retrospective painter of the Empire

First French Empire

The First French Empire , also known as the Greater French Empire or Napoleonic Empire, was the empire of Napoleon I of France...

.

Biography

Raffet was born in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

.

At an early age he was apprenticed to a wood turner, but took up the study of art at evening classes. He became acquainted with Alexandre Cabanel

Alexandre Cabanel

Alexandre Cabanel was a French painter.- Biography :Cabanel was born in Montpellier, Hérault. He painted historical, classical and religious subjects in the academic style. He was also well known as a portrait painter...

, who made him apply his skill to the decoration of china

Porcelain

Porcelain is a ceramic material made by heating raw materials, generally including clay in the form of kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between and...

, and with Rudor, from whom he received instruction in lithography, in the practice of which he was to rise to fame. He then entered the École des Beaux-Arts

École des Beaux-Arts

École des Beaux-Arts refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The most famous is the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, now located on the left bank in Paris, across the Seine from the Louvre, in the 6th arrondissement. The school has a history spanning more than 350 years,...

, but returned definitely to lithography in 1830 when he produced on stone his famous designs of Lützen

Battle of Lützen

Two major battles were fought at Lützen:*Battle of Lützen *Battle of Lützen...

, Waterloo, Le bal, La revue, and Les adieux de la garrison, by which his reputation became immediately established.

Raffet's chief works were his lithographs of the Napoleonic campaigns, from Egypt to Waterloo

Battle of Waterloo

The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815 near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands...

, vigorous designs that are inspired by ardent patriotic enthusiasm. In this endeavor, he was a contemporary of other French artist-lithographers of Napoleon and the French army including Hippolyte Bellangé

Hippolyte Bellangé

Joseph Louis Hippolyte Bellangé was a French battle painter. His art was influenced by the wars of the first Napoleon, and while a youth, he produced several military drawings in lithography. He afterwards pursued his systematic studies under Gros, and with the exception of some portraits, devoted...

, Horace Vernet

Horace Vernet

Émile Jean-Horace Vernet was a French painter of battles, portraits, and Orientalist Arab subjects.Vernet was born to Carle Vernet, another famous painter, who was himself a son of Claude Joseph Vernet. He was born in the Paris Louvre, while his parents were staying there during the French...

, and Nicolas Toussaint Charlet

Nicolas Toussaint Charlet

Nicolas Toussaint Charlet , French designer and painter, more especially of military subjects, was born in Paris....

. As an illustrator his activity was prodigious, the list of works illustrated by his crayon amounting to about forty-five, among which are Béranger

Pierre-Jean de Béranger

Pierre-Jean de Béranger was a prolific French poet and chansonnier , who enjoyed great popularity and influence in France during his lifetime, but faded into obscurity in the decades following his death...

's poems, the History of the Revolution by Adolphe Thiers

Adolphe Thiers

Marie Joseph Louis Adolphe Thiers was a French politician and historian. was a prime minister under King Louis-Philippe of France. Following the overthrow of the Second Empire he again came to prominence as the French leader who suppressed the revolutionary Paris Commune of 1871...

, the History of Napoleon by de Norvins, the great Walter Scott

Walter Scott

Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....

by Auguste Defauconpret

Auguste Defauconpret

Auguste Jean-Baptiste Defauconpret was a French man of letters.Initially a lawyer, Defauconpret relocated to England where he wrote some now forgotten novels...

, the French Plutarch

Plutarch

Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...

 and Frédéric Bérat

Frédéric Bérat

Frédéric Bérat was a French composer and songwriter. He is the writer of Ma Normandie which is used as the National Anthem of Jersey, and sometimes as the unofficial Norman anthem.-External links:...

's Songs.

He went to Rome in 1849, was present at the siege of Rome, which he made the subject of some lithographs, and followed the Italian campaign of 1859, of which he left a record in his Episodes de la campagne d'Italie de 1859. His portraits in pencil and water-colour are full of character. He died at Genoa in 1860. In 1893 a monument by Emmanuel Frémiet

Emmanuel Frémiet

Emmanuel Frémiet was a French sculptor. He is famous for his sculpture of Joan of Arc in Paris and the monument to Ferdinand de Lesseps in Suez....

 was unveiled in the Jardin de l'Infante at the Louvre

Louvre

The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...

, Paris.

External links

• Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University Library numerous lithographs and some original drawings by Raffet.