(b Paris, 23 May 1810; d Paris, March 1860). French painter and draughtsman. His father was the architect Pierre-Anne Dedreux (1788–1849); Alfred’s sister, Louise-Marie Becq de Fouquières (1825–92), was also an artist. His uncle, Pierre-Joseph Dedreux-Dorcy (1789–1874), a painter and intimate friend of Gericault, took Dedreux frequently to the atelier of Gericault whose choice of subjects, especially horses, had a lasting influence on him. During the 1820s he studied with Léon Cogniet, although his early style was more influenced by the work of Stubbs, Morland, Constable and Landseer, exposure to which probably came through Gericault and the painter Eugène Lami who lived in London in the mid-1820s. In 1831 he presented to the Paris Salon, Interior of a Stable, which was received to acclaim, and in 1834 he was awarded a third class medal. In 1840 he began his series of Horse Portraits, the subjects of which included horses from the stable of the Duke of Orleans and later the famous Tamerlan, the pride of Abd el Kadr who was prisoner in France from 1847 to 1850. De Dreux also won two second class medals in 1844 and 1848. After 1848 his loyalty to the Duke of Orleans took him to England where he was invariably exposed to the work of British animal painters. It was in England that some of his most celebrated portraits were produced, those of the Count of Paris and the Duke of Chartres as children riding in the woods. Despite his fashionable status as a portraitist he concentrated on equestrian painting, and also developed a marked taste for depicting racing dogs which were often to be found alongside a horse in his pictures. He returned to France and was commissioned to paint the portrait of Napoleon III. Howvever, before this could be executed there was a dispute over payment which resulted in his death in a duel at the hands of Comte Fleury, Napoleon’s aide de camp.
|
