Louis Gallait

Louis Gallait (Turned May 10th 1810 - Brussels November 20th 1887) is a painter, painter in watercolours and Belgian engraver

After its studies with the Athenaeum, it is placed as clerk in an attorney. The evening, it follows to the Art school of its birthplace the courses of Philippe-Auguste Hennequin. In 1832, it obtains its first success with its painting the sum of money of César which gives him the price of history to the contest organized by the company of the Art schools and of Literature of the Town of Ghent. In spite of the refusal of the burgomaster Jose de Hulste to ensure to him the continuation of a subsidy of 300 francs which the City of Turned granted him previously, Gallait goes nevertheless to Antwerp, provided with thin resources, to supplement its formation under the direction of Mathieu-Ignace Van Brée. Its Christ curing the blind men , exposed to Brussels in 1833 made known it general public and was bought at once for the cathedral of Turned by public subscription. This sale enabled him to go to Paris to study with the Louvre Masters like Rubens, Ribera or Murillo. It also followed there the lessons of Paul Delaroche; and there found the way consequently that it was not going to cease following. Beside the two schools traditional and romantic, represented then in Belgium by François-Joseph Navez and Gustave Wappers, followed each one of a line of distinguished artists, Gallait created a historical school of painting, which stuck especially to the truth of the local color and the dramatic interest of the scenes.

In Paris, it exposes to the living room of 1835, its table the oath of Vargas which opens the order book for the to him historical Musée of Versailles to which the king Louis-Philippe then devoted a big part of the resources of his civil list. It is for this collection that it paints in particular the Portrait of the duke of Biron (Versailles), just as Job on its manure, surrounded by his/her three friends and his wife (Museum of the Art schools with Lille). In same time, it sends two fabrics to the triennial Exposure of Brussels: the Repentance and Montaigne visiting Cup with Ferrare . In 1841, the reputation of Gallait becomes European thanks to the Abdication of Charles-Quint (Musée of the Art schools in Tournai). Started in 1838, this vast composition of five meters out of seven required three years of assiduous labor in information retrievals and iconographic. Exposed in many capitals of Europe, this work gained a considerable success, attracting over its author a rain of honorary distinctions of which the Légion of honor. Turned triumphantly celebrated this success at the time of a banquet organized in the honor of the painter on Sunday, August 29, 1841 to the Town hall. The artist married on March 19th, 1844, Hippolyte-Simone Picke and the couple went to settle with Schaerbeek. Its fertile activity of portraitist and historical tables put it at the head of a considerable fortune.

Louis Gallait reached the apogee of his glory with his table Derniers honors returned to the counts d' Egmont and of Hornes , famous under the title the cut heads , true page of history which will remain as the fading of a crime of State (1851 - Museum of the Art schools with Tournai). Lastly, Gallait finished in 1882 the Plague with Turned in 1092 (Museum of the Art schools with Tournai). This table, to which he worked already in 1853, is a born early work, like he says it itself, of its sharp attachment for its birthplace. This immense fabric measures nearly five meters out of eight.

It also used the technique of engraving in sights of Turned (realized about 1830), of Germany, Austria and France. There are also watercolours, with appreciations of white gouache, painted with the island of Wight in 1862 and 1866.

The notoriety of Gallait was worth to him many nominations in the learned societies, in particular: member of the imperial Academy of the Art schools with Vienna and Berlin, director then president of the royal Academy of Belgium. In October 1862, he refused the title of baron whom the king Léopold Ier offered to him.

With its death, Tournai made him imposing funeral and, in 1891, Guillaume Charlier carried out a monument raised with its honor in the communal park of Turned.

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