Leonard Defrance (1735-1805)

Aliases: Léonard Defrance; Léonard France

Professions: Painter

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  Interior of an Inn with elegant figures eating and artisans playing cards in the background; and Interior of an Inn with mixed company taking tea

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  Leonard Defrance (LiŠge 1735-1805)

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  Léonard Defrance (Liège 1735-1805)

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  Two bottles, an empty wine glass, a knife, a slice of pumpkin, a half loaf of bread, a white napkin with figs and black grapes in a white porcelain bowl, all on a wooden table

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Leonard Defrance Biography

(b liège, 5 nov 1735; d liège, 25 feb 1805). franco-flemish painter and draughtsman. he was apprenticed in 1745 to jean-baptiste coclers (1698–1772). in 1755 he travelled to italy to study painting and worked at the académie de france, rome, under laurent pécheux for a year, assisting pécheux with his studies from the antique for robert adam. an interest in philosophy led to difficulties with the inquisition, and in 1760 he left rome and settled in montpellier until 1763, exhibiting paintings at the académie royale de peinture in toulouse each year. although many of his patrons were from the clergy, defrance’s interests continued to be philosophical and scientific; his portrait of the toulouse astronomer antoine darquier (priv. col., see mémoires , p. 56) dates from this period. defrance found the persecution of protestants in toulouse antipathetic to his liberal beliefs and in 1763 returned to liège. in 1773 he visited the northern netherlands with nicolas fassin and copied the genre paintings of such artists as david teniers (i) and philips wouwerman. these copies and his own low-life and domestic genre paintings (e.g. card game , liège, mus. a. wallon) sold well. in the same year defrance and fassin opened an academy of which defrance was director from 1775 to 1784. in 1784 the new prince-bishop of liège, constantin françois de haensbroech (1724–92), instituted a severely repressive regime, and defrance went into exile on several occasions. in 1786 and 1787 he exhibited in the paris salon de la correspondance, and in 1791 and 1793 in the salon révolutionnaire. after the revolution of 1789 defrance became a member of the assemblée liégeoise from 1792 to 1794 and of the conseil municipal in 1800.

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