Louis Joseph César Ducornet (January 10, 1806 in Lille

Lille

Lille is a city in northern France . It is the principal city of the Lille Métropole, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the country behind those of Paris, Lyon and Marseille. Lille is situated on the Deûle River, near France's border with Belgium...

 – April 27, 1856 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...

) 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...

 painter

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

.

Ducornet was born without arms; he painted using his foot. He studied under François Louis Joseph Watteau and Guillaume Guillon-Lethière

Guillaume Guillon-Lethière

Guillaume Guillon Lethière was a French neoclassical painter.Born in Guadeloupe in 1760 to a French colonial official named Pierre Guillon and a disenfranchised "mulatto" mother, Lethière has been often written about in the context of French colonial history and the French Revolution.At 14 years...

.
He painted biblical and historical scenes, as well as portrait

Portrait

thumb|250px|right|Portrait of [[Thomas Jefferson]] by [[Rembrandt Peale]], 1805. [[New-York Historical Society]].A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness,...

s.

Biography

Louis Joseph César Ducornet, a French historical painter, was born of poor parentage at Lille, in 1806. Ho was deformed from his birth, having neither arms nor thighs, and only four toes to his right foot. While still a child, he used to pick up pieces of charcoal from the floor with his toes, and the rough sketches he thus made evinced so much promise that he received some local instruction. By the help of the municipality of Lille, he was sent to Paris, where he studied under Lethière

Guillaume Guillon-Lethière

Guillaume Guillon Lethière was a French neoclassical painter.Born in Guadeloupe in 1760 to a French colonial official named Pierre Guillon and a disenfranchised "mulatto" mother, Lethière has been often written about in the context of French colonial history and the French Revolution.At 14 years...

 and Gérard

François Gerard

François Pascal Simon, Baron Gérard was a French painter born in Rome, where his father occupied a post in the house of the French ambassador. His mother was Italian. As a baron of the Empire he is sometimes referred to as Baron Gérard.-Life:François Gérard was born in Rome, on 12 March 1770, to...

, and for a short time received a government pension. He died in Paris in 1856. Amongst his chief pictures are:

• Repentance. 1828.
• The Parting of Hector and Andromache. {Lille Museum
  Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille
  The Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille is one of the largest museums in France, and the largest French museum outside of Paris....
  
  .)
• St. Louis administering Justice. {Lille Museum.)
• Death of Mary Magdalen. 1840. {St. André, Lille.)
• The Repose in Egypt. 1841.
• Christ in the Sepulchre. 1843.
• Edith finding the body of Harold. 1855.