Émile van Marcke

Like his Dutch father, Jean-Baptiste van Marcke de Lummen (1797-1849), Émile van Marcke was at first employed as a painter-decorator for the Manufacture de Porcelaine in Sèvres, where he met Constant Troyon (1810-1865), another employee who influenced his career as an animal painter and who introduced him to the Barbizon painters. Van Marcke's first animal studies were made at the imperial farms at Villeneuve-l'Étang and in Grignon, where he was a frequent visitor. He then spent time in Brittany, the Landes, and Sologne, finally settling in Bouttencourt in Normandy. He almost exclusively...