Jean Baptiste Édouard Detaille (1848-1912)
Detaille was a French Academic painter and military artist noted for his precision and realistic detail.
He studied with Ernest Meissonier and employed a technique of literal exactitude based on that of his teacher.
He served in the French Army in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871 and became the official painter of the battles. He is famous for his portraits of soldiers and depictions of military manoeuvres, military uniforms and general military life. He was born at Paris October 5 1848. With Alphonse de Neuville and Ernest Meissonier are one of the most important “Peintres de guerre” of France.
Likewise, Detaille's soldiers associate reminiscences of the glorious French past : the victorious soldiers of the Revolution and Napoleonic Empire with his great victory as Austerlitz and Wagram, but neither are neglected their comrades of the Restoration, whose white flag also carried the day in the Trocadero or Algiers, nor the “1870 soldiers “ of Reichshoffen, under a hail of bullets, or the survivors of Gravelotte, gloriously vanquished. Very famous his epical table called “The dream” .
Also his paintings of the Franco-German War : The Defence of Champigny, paint in the 1879 made him famous. Detaille also painted some portraits and non military subjects and was a gifted actor.
Detaille dead in Paris the December ,23 1912.