MENJAUD, Alexandre

(b. 1773 Paris, d. 1832 Paris)

French painter. Menjaud was a member of the first generation of nineteenth-century French painters who turned to French anecdotal history for subject matter. Like his fellow “troubadour” painters, many of whom studied with Jacques-Louis David, Menjaud received his training from a Neoclassical painter, Jean-Baptiste Regnault.

He first exhibited at the Salon in 1796 and won the Prix de Rome in 1802. The 1808 Salon, to which Menjaud submitted a Henri IV chez Michaud, was a turning point for the artist, and the great majority of the history paintings he subsequently exhibited at the Salons through 1834 were of French history subjects. However, he illustrated also the lives of great painters, such as Raphael Painting the Virgin with Angels (1819) or Tintoretto and Aretino (1822).

He produced numerous paintings of modest format.

François I and La Belle Ferronière

This painting was exhibited at the 1810 Salon in Paris. The mythology of Fran�ois I as a philanderer was already current when Menjaud chose to paint the subject of the King with one of his many mistresses. In fact, Fran�ois’s affair with “la belle Ferroni�re” is now known to have been a fabrication, dating to some years after the King’s death.

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Girodet's Farewell to His Studio

This picture is a posthumous tribute to the painter Girodet de Roucy-Trioson, inspired a legend. It represents the scene when, a few days before his death, Girodet, supported by his housekeeper, says goodbye to his workshop.

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