JACQUEMART Albert (EN)

Biographical commentary

Albert Charles Jacques Jacquemart was born in Paris in 1808, the son of François Jacquemart and Marie Julie Adnet (Archives de Paris, Fichier des Mariages Parisiens 1795-1862, vol. 129), and died at his home at 23 rue de la Grande Armée on 14 October 1875. He is known for his numerous works on the history of ceramics, and for his innovative classification of Chinese porcelain into different families.

Beginnings in artistic circles

Albert Jacquemart is said to have attended the studio of a certain "M. Buffet" and then the École des Beaux-arts (Perrier H., 1876; pp. 10-13). More likely it was the studio of Claude-Marie Dubufe (1790-1864), whose works he reproduced, such as

Les regrets or Les souvenirs after their success at the 1827 Salon. In 1825, Albert Jacquemart joined the customs administration at a very young age, where he worked for the rest of his life. He was successively clerk, deputy clerk and office manager, before retiring in 1874 (Archives économiques et financière, shelfmark: 1C-0021339). He married Louise Emilie Labbé in October 1833 at Saint Denis Saint Sacrement church, and together they had four children: Louise Pauline born on 20 September 1834, Marie Louise on 21 November 1835, the future engraver Ferdinand Jules on 8 September 1837 (A.P. Naissances V3E/N 1193), and Marie Augustine on 29 October 1844. Albert Jacquemart remained involved in artistic circles throughout his life. In particular, he was a member of the Société Libre des Beaux-arts de Paris, of which he became secretary around 1839 and vice-president in 1859. He was described as a "painter" and "natural history teacher" (Annales de la Société des Beaux-arts, t. VIII (1838-1839)), although no mention was made of his actual professional activity.

At the beginning of his career, Albert Jacquemart was passionate about natural history painting, which he defended as a major art form (Jacquemart A., 1839-1840). In 1839, he produced a number of plates for the Annales Françaises et étrangères d'anatomie et de Physiologie by the anatomist François Arman Bazin and Jean-Louis-Maurice Laurent. The same year, he produced a series of engravings on vellum depicting invertebrates for the Natural History Museum. In addition to these works, the Musée des Beaux-arts de la ville of Limoges also holds some pastel family portraits and two etched studies of Dubufe. These works became part of the public collections when his youngest daughter, Marie Augustine Jacquemart, widow of Emile Masson, bequeathed them to the city of Limoges in 1912.

Albert Jacquemart as an author

Although Albert Jacquemart is best known for his works on ceramics, his first publication was on botany. It was a work aimed at young girls, in which he depicted himself teaching the life sciences to "Baroness Clémence D***". The book was published twice, in 1840 under the title La flore des dames and in 1841, with the addition of the subtitle Nouveau langage des fleurs.

The first publication to make Albert Jacquemart a household name was his Histoire artistique, industrielle et commerciale de la porcelaine, published from 1861, which he co-wrote with Edmond Le Blant, a colleague in the customs administration. There are several indications that this was mainly the work of Jacquemart himself; the book abounds in references to the natural sciences, in which he had a particular interest. Jacquemart also continued to perfect his research on ceramics in two other works, Les Merveilles de la céramique, published in 1879 and Histoire de la céramique: étude descriptive et raisonnée des poteries de tous les temps et de tous les peuples, in 1873, whereas Edmond Le Blant would later be known for his work on Christian archaeology.

L'Histoire de la porcelaine is divided into chronological and geographical sections: it begins with the “Orient” as the birthplace of porcelain and ends with the history of porcelain in Europe. For the first time, Oriental ceramics are the subject of a lengthy development bringing together all the sources available at the time: descriptions by Jesuits in China, 18th century sales catalogues, particularly those of Gersaint, which are highly descriptive, and above all the recent translation of the Jingdezhen Taolu 景德鎮陶錄 by Stanislas Julien under the title Histoire et fabrication de la porcelaine chinoise (1856). Not content with bringing together an anthology of sources that already existed, they renewed the genre, developing an original classification of Oriental porcelains based on principles specific to the natural sciences (d'Abrigeon: 2018). Porcelains were thus grouped into "families" according to their decoration: the archaic family, which includes a group of works considered to be older and attributed to Korea; the chrysanthemum-peony family, which takes its name from the two flowers that adorn it, the chrysanthemum and the peony (Chinese and Japanese pieces); and finally, the “famille verte” (Chinese pieces only) and “famille rose” (Chinese and Japanese pieces), named after the colour of the glazes that dominate their decoration. A final category, which they call "exceptional productions", includes all the monochrome pieces (blanc de chine, celadon ware, sang de boeuf, etc.), and the so-called flambé, craquelé, and “truités” pieces. This classification established a new terminology for Oriental ceramics, which the art market quickly adopted after the publication of the book. Terms borrowed from Jaquemart appeared in auction catalogues, notably famille verte and famille rose.

Albert Jacquemart and ceramic collectors in France

Albert Jacquemart gradually established himself as an important figure in Parisian artistic circles, particularly among collectors. Some of the most eminent collectors entrusted him with the task of compiling an inventory of their collections. He published the collections of Mme Malinet (1862), wife of the famous curios dealer Nicolas Joseph Malinet (1805-1886), Charles De Férol (1863), Baron Hippolyte de Monville (1866, Lugt no. 28856), Admiral Page (1867, Lugt no. 29805), Mme Beaven (1868, Lugt no. 30847), and the painter Polycarpe Charles Séchan (1875, Lugt no. 35385). Some of these catalogues were reused by experts at auctions, others were written especially for sales, and still others appeared to be stand-alone publications, even though their format was very similar to that of a sales catalogue. Jacquemart's in-depth knowledge of the collections of his contemporaries is reflected in his writings, in which he refers to the objects of others to support his argument. Jacquemart's correspondence, preserved in the Jacques Doucet collection of the library of the Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art, bears witness to the authority that Jacquemart became in the field of ceramics (INHA_ARCHIVE_29590). Most of these letters concern requests for expertise on objects, inscriptions, coats of arms or manufactures.

Albert Jacquemart and exhibitions

Albert Jacquemart took an active part in the artistic events of his time. He wrote exhibition reviews for the Gazette des Beaux-arts, notably for the exhibition of bronzes brought back from Japan by Henri Cernuschi (1821-1896) at the Palais de l'Industrie in 1874. As a member of the Commission de l'Histoire du Travail at the 1867 Universal Exhibition, he organised the display dedicated to the history of work. Albert Jacquemart was a member of the awards jury at the Universal Exhibitions in Paris and London, as well as of various commissions for retrospective exhibitions held by the Union Centrale des Beaux-arts appliqués à l'industrie. In 1869, the latter organised an exhibition devoted to Oriental art, for which he lent many works from his collection and wrote the catalogue with the help of Paul Gasnault. He was also a member of the Conseil de perfectionnement of the Sèvres manufacture.

Distinctions

Albert Jaquemart was made a knight of the Legion of Honour in 1869, although there are no records to confirm this. Henry Perrier, the author of an obituary dedicated to him, deplores the fact that this distinction was awarded for his work as head of the customs office and not for his artistic and scholarly work. In the year of his death, he was also made an officer of the French Academy.

His collection

Albert Jacquemart was above all a collector of ceramics in the broadest sense. The catalog of his collection, published after his death from his manuscripts by his friend and disciple Paul Gasnault, shows, however, that he had a particularly pronounced taste for oriental porcelain. The latter accounted for 429 numbers in his collection, while European ceramics, most of which came from French manufactures, were limited to 157 numbers. This was not an expansive collection, but, as his friend Paul Gasnault pointed out, a scientific collection assembled by a "man of study" rather than a "curious person". What counts above all for Albert Jacquemart is that his works "represent a type, characterize an era or a region, and can serve to highlight such and such a manufacturing process or such and such an interesting fact for the history of Ceramics" (Gasnault: 1879; p. IX).

Shortly after Albert Jacquemart's death, Adrien Dubouché, then director of the Musée de Limoges, purchased his collection from his heirs and donated it to the Musée Céramique de Limoges. The collection was appraised by Charles Mannheim, one of the most active Parisian experts of his time. Paul Gasnault (1828-1898), who acted as intermediary in the negotiations, succeeded in getting Jules Jacquemart, Albert's son, to accept the price of 25,000 francs. Two conditions were added to this acquisition: the collection had to be presented in its entirety, according to the classification developed by Albert Jacquemart, and the exhibition room had to bear his name. Following this major acquisition, the city of Limoges decided to rename the Musée Céramique in honor of its generous donor, the Musée Adrien Dubouché. Although the museum's current layout no longer meets the requirements of the bequest, the Musée Adrien Dubouché, now the Musée National Adrien Dubouché, continues to exhibit the finest pieces from the Jacquemart collection in its permanent exhibition rooms.