TAIGNY Edmond (EN)

Biographical Article

Ernest Amédée, known as Edmond Taigny, was born on March 21, 1828 (AP, V3E/N 2091) to the businessman Auguste Narcisse Emmanuel Taigny and the painter Marie Amélie Maistre. He was the nephew by marriage of the painter Jean-Baptiste Isabey (1767-1855). In 1865, he married Julie Delon (?-1918) with whom he had three children: Olivier Taigny, Jane Taigny (1856-?), and Louise Taigny (1858-1911).

A graduate of the faculty of law in Paris, Edmond Taigny initially worked as an attaché at the Ministry of the Interior. From September 1852, he was a second class auditor on the Council of State, before being appointed in 1859 first class auditor on the Council of State attached to the Council of the Seal and Titles (Conseil du sceau et des titres). He was promoted to Master of Requests (maître des requêtes) in 1864, a position he held until his retirement. On August 14, 1866, Taigny was made a chevalier de la Légion d’honneur (AN, Léonore base, LH//2563/1).

The Literary and Artistic World

As a writer and critic, Taigny regularly published articles devoted to art and literature starting in the 1860s. His major texts were brought together in 1869 in the collection Mélanges : étudeslittéraires et artistiques, which included the biographies of Jean-Baptiste Isabey, Catherine II (1729-1796), and Princess Daschkoff (1743-1810), the writer Paul de Molènes (1821-1862), and the prefect of police Carlier. These portraits were complemented by several essays: Le Musée Campana, Quelques mots sur l’art allemand, L’Exposition des beaux-arts à Manchester, L’Art pour tous, and Goethe et Werther.

Involved in the artistic world, Taigny was a member of the international jury of the Exposition universelle of 1867 and of the committee of the Exposition universelle of 1900.

Also trained in painting by Henri Harpignies (1819-1916), he exhibited at the Salon des artistes français in 1868 and 1870 as a watercolourist and landscape painter (Explication des ouvrages de peinture […], 1868, p. 426).

He also played an active role in the founding of the Société du musée des Arts décoratifs in 1877, then of the Union centrale des Arts décoratifs in 1882, as a member of the board of directors and president of the museum commission. His actions led to the acquisition of Far Eastern works, including the purchase of nineteen pieces of Chinese and Japanese ceramics from 1881 (Revue des arts décoratifs, 1881, p. 7) and art nouveau objects.

A member of various Parisian societies, such as the circle of the Union artistique and the Cercle des chemins de fer (Yriarte C., 1864, p. 272 ​​and 296), Taigny chaired the Société de propagation des livres d’art between 1898 and 1905.

Edmond Taigny died on October 6, 1906 (AP, 8 D 121), at his home at 44, avenue Montaigne in Paris.

The Collection

As a major collector, Edmond Taigny was as attached to painting as to printmaking or even to the decorative arts and brought together a vast ensemble spanning European, Middle Eastern, and Far Eastern creation.

While his collection of paintings consists of a few old canvases (François Clouet [1520-1572]), his preference was for contemporary artists (Eugène Isabey [1803-1886]; Gustave Moreau [1826-1898]; Giuseppe de Nittis [1846- 1884]; Gustave Ricard [1823-1873]; and Henriette Brown [1829-1901]), some of whom produced portraits of his relatives (one of his wife by Ferdinand Heilbuth [1826-1889]; two of his daughters by Édouard Dubufe [1819-1883]). These works all disappeared during the fires of the Commune (Vachon M., 1879, p. 28).

Sensitive to developments in the decorative arts, Taigny took an interest in art nouveau. In 1891, he visited the Salon du Champ-de-Mars and there bought one of the "talking glasses" by Émile Gallé (1846-1904), a glass bowl entitled Herbe sous la glace, engraved with a poem by Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949) [Revue des arts décoratifs, 1891, p. 334). Regarding applied arts, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish clearly between Taigny's acquisitions for the Union centrale des Arts décoratifs and his personal purchases.

The most illustrious part of the Taigny collection was undoubtedly that devoted to the arts of the Far East, which he probably began in the 1860s. From 1865, his “oriental bronzes” were mentioned in the Gazette des beaux-arts as among the collections of the Union centrale.

Exhibitions

In the preface to the Catalogue de la précieuse collection de peintures et estampes japonaises formée par M. Edmond Taigny in 1893, Ernest Leroux (1845-1917) points out that Taigny was interested in ukiyo-e prints, "long before the exhibition at the École des beaux-arts a few years ago provided an overview of the capital works of Japanese chromoxylography" (p. VI-VII). The exhibition mentioned by Leroux, devoted to Japanese engraving, was held in April-May 1890. Taigny, a lender as well as a member of the organising committee, exhibited 70 prints from the Torii school (鳥居派) [Kiyomasu (清倍), Kiyohiro (清広)], the Utagawa school (歌川派) [Toyohiro (豊広), Toyokuni (豊国), Kunimasa (国政), Toyomaru (豊丸), Hiroshige (広重)], the Katsukawa school (勝川) [Shunsho (春章), Shun'ei (春英), Shunsen (春扇), Shuntei (春英), Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾 北斎), Torii Kiyonaga (鳥居清長), Suzuki Harunobu (鈴木 春信 春信 春信), Kitagawa Utamaro (喜多川 歌麿), Kitagawa Tsukimaro (喜多川 月麿 月麿), Isoda Koryūsai (礒田 湖龍斎), Okumura Masanobu (奥村政信), Ishikawa Toyonobu (石川 豊信), Ippitsusai Bunchō (一筆斎文調), Kitao Shighemasa (北尾 重政), Tōshūsai Sharaku (東洲斎写楽), Ryūkōsai Jokei (琉光斎 如圭), Kubo Shunman (窪俊満), Chōkōsai Eishō (鳥高斎 栄昌), Ichirakutei Eisui (一楽亭栄水), and Shibata Zeshin [柴田 是真)]. Finally, in the Bulletin de la Société franco-japonaise de Paris of 1906, Mène (1833-1913) cites Taigny, who had recently passed away, as one of the most famous connoisseurs of Japanese lacquerware of his time (p. 41).

Other exhibitions provide an idea of ​​Edmond Taigny's Far Eastern collection, which covered many mediums. In 1869, he lent 24 bronzes from China and Japan, an Indian or Persian bronze, and three cloisonné enamel pieces to the “Musée oriental”, a short-lived event organised by the Union centrale des beaux-arts appliqués à l’industrie (Union centrale des beaux-arts appliqués à l’industrie, 1869, p. 15-56). In 1878, a "Taigny showcase" was mentioned in the "Ceramics from the Far East" section of the Exposition universelle in Paris (Gasnault P., 1879, p 479). In 1883, Taigny lent a series of objects for the Exposition rétrospective de l'art japonais organised by Louis Gonse (1846-1921) at the Georges Petit Gallery: 3 bronzes, 34 statuettes in terracotta or Bizen sandstone, 35 pieces various terracotta, 3 wooden statuettes, a lacquer box, and a watercolour on silk. Published at the end of the event, the work entitled L’Art japonais (1883) includes several illustrations of carved wooden statuettes taken from the Taigny collection, which was, according to Louis Gonse, “of its kind, the most numerous and the more interesting than there is in Europe” (Gonse L., 1883, p. 108).

Donations

Taigny was both generous with his loans and as a friend and donor to several French museums. In 1891, he donated a portrait of Jean-Baptiste Isabey, a miniature on ivory signed E. Armand, to the Musée de Nancy (Musée de Nancy…, 1897, p. 188). In 1894, he donated a large Chinese bronze dish, a mask, a knife handle decorated with a dragonfly, an openwork sabre hilt, and three Japanese prints to the Louvre (L'Art pour tous: encyclopédie de l'art industrielle et decoratif, March 1894, p. 2). But it was to the Musée des arts décoratifs, to which he was also connected as part of his duties, that he made the greatest number of donations: a porcelain cup and saucer with gilded decoration in 1881 (Revue des arts décoratifs, 1881, p. 131), an English porcelain asparagus plate in 1884 (Revue des arts décoratifs, 1884, p. 532), an 18th century Venetian porcelain cup in 1887 (Revue des arts décoratifs, 1887, p. 286), a white Paris porcelain cup from the first half of the 19th century, a doorway painted in oil on canvas from the late-18th century in 1888 (Revue des arts décoratifs, 1888, p. 255), a 19th century terracotta saltcellar in 1895 (Revue des arts décoratifs, 1894, p. 415), and two glass bracelets from an Arabic peasant woman (fellah) in 1896 (Revue des arts décoratifs, 1896, p. 243). In February 1908, more than a year after Taigny's death, the newspaper La Liberté (p. 3) reported that earthenware dishes by Théodore Deck appeared in the exhibition at the Musée des Arts décoratifs of recent donations and bequests.

Destructions and Dispersals

Part of the Taigny collection disappeared in May 1871, during the fires of the Commune. In September of the previous year, the Master of Requests had deposited a set of objects in a warehouse of the Council of State (then meeting at the Palais d'Orsay). He recounted in 1879: “My collection comprised two distinct kinds of objects. First, paintings and drawings; secondly the greatest and most precious part of my oriental riches. […] My oriental collection consisted of a fine series of jades and hard materials, rock crystals, cloisonné enamels; these coins, purchased in the years following the expedition from China, were top quality and would have a very high value today. Add a hundred very fine Japanese ivories, a large selection of rare porcelains and antique lacquers, gold and silver nielloed bronzes, a large part of my silverware, including many pieces from old Paris and jewellery, my wife's fans and laces. I don't think it's necessary to provide a more detailed description of these objects. Their mention suffices for connoisseurs to understand the extent of the loss I have suffered. It can be valued at 110,000 francs that I spent, but the current market value would be at least 150,000 francs” (Vachon M., 1879, p. 28-29).

On February 6-7, 1893, Taigny sold a large part of its collections of Japanese paintings and prints at the Hôtel Drouot during a first auction. In the preface to the catalogue, expert Ernest Leroux points out that the collection “groups together an almost complete series of the art of color engraving in Japan; it somehow synthesises its history; almost all the great artists are there, honourably represented, most by first-rate works” (Leroux E., 1893, p. VI-VII). Among the 339 numbers in the lot are a few Buddhist paintings, but mostly prints produced between the 17th and 19th centuries. The "First Period" (17th century and first half of the 18th century) is represented by Hishikawa Moronobu (菱川 師宣), who is considered to be one of the founders of ukiyo-e, the Torii school (鳥居派) [Kiyonobu (清信), Kiyomasu (清倍), Kiyomitsu (清満), Kiyohiro (清広), Kiyotsune (清経)], Okumorura Masanobu (奥村政信), and Toshinobu (奥村利信), Hanabusa Itcho (英一蝶)].

In the "Second Period" (second half of the 18th century) there are Suzuki Harunobu (鈴木春信), the last Torii (鳥居) [Kiyonaga (清長) and Kiyominé (清峰), Ippitsusai Bunchō (筆斎文調), Isoda Koryusai (礒田湖龍斎)], the first Utagawa (歌川) [Toyoharu (豊春) and Toyohiro (豊広)], the Katsukawa (勝川) [Shunsho (春章), Shun'ei (春英), Shunkō (春好), shunzan (春山), shuntei (春亭),shunsen (春扇)], Chobunsai Eishi (鳥文斎栄之), Chōkōsai Eishō (鳥高斎), Katsukawa Shunchō (勝川 春潮), Kitao Shigh斾鰿), Tōshūsai Sharaku (東洲斎写楽), Eishōsai Chōki (栄松斎長喜), the Kitagawa (喜多川) [Utamaro (歌麿), Tsukimaro (月麿), Shikimaro (式麿)], and Kikukawa Eizan (菊山 英川).

Finally, the "Third Period" (19th century) includes works from the Utagawa (歌川) school [Toyokuni (豊国), Kunisada (国貞), Kuniyoshi (国芳), Kunitora (国虎), Kunimitsu (国三), Kunimasa (国政), Kuniyasu (国安), Hiroshige (広重), Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾北斎) and his school [Yanagawa Shigenobu (柳川重信), Totoya Hokkei (魚屋北渓), Yashima Gakutei (八島岳亭), (Keisai Eisai渓斎英泉), Teisai Hokuba (江戸隅田川), Shibata Zeshin (柴田 是真)]. The catalogue ends with some 20 illustrated books, including Hokusai's Manga, and a few works of art (ceramics, bronzes, statuettes, masks, and a sabre from the Burty sale in 1891).

On April 20-21, 1903, a second auction at the Hôtel Drouot, this time devoted to the applied arts, completed the dispersal of Taigny's Far Eastern collection. The famous art dealer Siegfried Bing was responsible for the expertise of this set of Chinese and Japanese objects. Of the 308 numbers in the lot, there were 152 ceramics, 65 bronze objects, 3 iron objects, 4 cloisonné objects, 24 Japanese wooden sculptures, 2 Chinese wooden sculptures, 8 Japanese lacquerware, 21 Japanese prints, and 50 kakemono.