Joseph-Laurent Malaine (21 February 1745 – 5 May 1809) was a French flower painter and created cartoons for tapestries as well as designs for wall-papers and textiles.
Life He was born in Tournai, Austrian Netherlands. His father was Régnier Joseph Malaine, a master flower painter in Tournai, where Joseph-Laurent Malaine also trained as a flower painter.According to the Prado website : In 1773, he presented two paintings of flowers in vases at the first Lille "Salon des Arts".Bacqué Paintings by him are dated from 1773, up to 1806.
It is not known when he arrived in Paris. He married Hélène Victoire Roze (d. 1856), the daughter of a master sculptor and wood merchantIt is known that Cabinet maker Jan van Mekeren (1658–1687), for example, also ran a wood trade – presumably selling exotic woods to other artists like him: in Paris in the summer of 1779. The couple lived on the rue du Faubourg Saint Martin.
In 1784according to the Mobilier National website () or 1786,Fenaille, tome V he succeeded Maurice Jacques (1712–1784) and became a flower painter at the manufacture des Gobelins, "where he designed cartoons for chairs": he was thus a painter-cartoon designer and, with his workshop, created models for chair tapestries.Véronique de Bruignac-La Hougue, 'Florilèges de papiers peints', Le Pouvoir des Fleurs, p. 102 Maurice Fenaille specifies that he "was invited by Director Pierre to come and occupy a lodging at the Manufacture; he was to receive no salary, but to be paid for all the works he would execute on behalf of the Manufacture." He addsFenaille, Tome IV, p. 410 that "Pierre, premier peintre du Roi, wrote on July 2, 1788 to Comte d'Angiviller to ask him to ratify Laurent Malaine's appointment."
The same author goes on to give details of an order received by Malaine: it concerns a "meuble complet" (i.e. all the seats in a salon) for which he made models for the backs, seats and platbands (the vertical strips of fabric or tapestry under the horizontal part of the seat) of two sofas, twelve armchairs and two sheets for fire screens.
A cartoon of this type can be seen at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.musée des Arts Décoratifs: , Twenty-eight of Malaine's cartoons are preserved at the Mobilier National.Mobilier National Malaine also produced designs for borders, a "carpet design ... for the service of the Savonnerie manufactory" (1788), etc.
After Charles-Axel Guillaumot was appointed head of the Gobelins Manufactory, Jacqué indicated that the seminary where apprentices were trained, as well as the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture which trained them in drawing, were abolished, and the three painters attached to the manufacture dismissed, including Malaine,See also: Jules Guiffrey (1840-1918), Histoire de la tapisserie depuis le moyen âge jusqu'à nos jours, p. 455: but the latter seems to have remained at the head of his workshop, at Les Gobelins.
By 1792, he was already working for the Arthur et Grenard (Rue Louis-le-Grand, at the junction with the boulevard des Italiens) wallpaper factory in Paris, and for an "indienne factory in Mulhouse, in Switzerland (Mulhouse was then an independent territory linked to Switzerland)", that of Dollfus père, fils & Cie, founded in 1786, "in whose affairs he was interested and which he was used to visiting", according to Fenaille.<Tome V, P. 429-430Bacqué .1.2 He also provides "a wallpaper project for the royal Savonnerie manufactory" (according to Véronique de Bruignac-La Hougue). He mentions his decision to leave the Gobelins in a letter dated September 29, 1792, three weeks after the September Massacres. According to Fenaille, "he was invited to evacuate the lodgings he occupied, the minister Roland having reiterated the order on October 11, 1792" because he worked less for the Manufacture than for the wallpaper and indienne factories.
In early 1793, having settled in Mulhouse, he continued his cooperation with the wallpaper manufacturer Nicolas Dollfus et Cie (they had started working together in 1790 - and he had previously been Nicolas Dollfus's teacher), designing wallpaper patterns for the Alsatian company, to which he remained loyal after his return to Paris",Véronique de Bruignac-La Hougue p. 102 and worked as a flower painter for the canvas and wallpaper manufactures of Mulhouse, Thann, and Rixheim.La Grande encyclopédie, inventaire raisonné des sciences, des lettres et des arts (Volume 22) p. 1041. This source mentions a fabric factory, and does not mention the Rixheim factory Returning to Paris in March 1797 (according to Jacqué; 1796, according to the Prado), "he continued to paint esteemed pictures, several of which have been attributed to Van Spaendonck" (Grand Dictionnaire), while continuing his collaboration with companies in Mulhouse, then Rixheim. He may then (according to the Prado) have been appointed professor at the Académie de Lyon, a position he held until his death in Paris on May 5, 1809 – however, Bernard Jacqué has found no trace of this appointment, and regards it only as a legend. He is buried in the Père-Lachaise cemetery, division 57.Prado
Paintings
Malaine exhibited at the Salon from 1791 to 1808.Museo del Prado : He painted in oil on copper, wood or canvas. Most of his works depict bouquets of flowers in vases set on entablatures, sometimes with insects or even birds. Among the paintings recently offered for saleInvaluable.com were two still lifes, one depicting two stems of "roses of Sharon", the other two bunches of grapes in trompe-l'œil. Several paintings of fruit are known, such as one of peaches, with jasmine flowers and two goldfinches.
The Prado Museum's website describes him as "A modest painter whose works are few and far between, his compositions are characterized by an elegance and simplicity far removed from the spectacular style that prevailed at the time. His two paintings of vases in the Prado Museum are a good example of his meticulous, detailed style. His work is particularly interested in the realistic, tangible effect of different textures and motifs, whether flowers, vases or insects. Through the study of light on different qualities, he succeeds in creating a sense of volume that reinforces the realism of his paintings.".Museo del Prado
At the time of his death, his son Louis Alphonse Joseph Malaine (Paris 1782 – Mulhouse 1858; his wife was from Thann) was a draftsman at the Gobelins.Base Mérimée : "Malaine"&resPage=6&last_view="list"&idQuery="a2f7b0-d7d2-e6c3-e477-c17e7f1a4e" He "then made a career in Mulhouse where he became a specialist in paisley".Bernard Jacqué
Malaine signed his paintings "Louis Malaine", "L Malaine", or with a monogram, "LJM" or "LM". In written sources, he is often referred to as "Malaine père", while "Malaine fils" is his son, Alphonse (Paris, June 16, 1782 - October 11, 1858, Mulhouse).
One of Malaine's pupils was Jacques Barraband, who became a painter in the "flower class" of the Lyon School of Drawing in 1807."At the age of sixteen [that is in 1784 or 1785], he came to Paris, where he entered the studio of Malaine, painter-draughtsman at the Gobelins", Biographie universelle ancienne et moderne: histoire par ordre alphabétique de la vie publique et privée de tous les hommes. .... publ. under the dir. of Louis-Gabriel Michaud (1773-1858), vol. 3, p. 132
Public collections Prado Museum: two paintings (oil on wood), painted between 1786 and 1793, are in the Prado Museum's reserves. They previously belonged to the Royal Collection (Royal Palace of Madrid, Queen's Chamber).Florero P002286 and Florero P002287, Prado Museum : Mulhouse: A Bouquet de fleurs (oil on wood) was donated to the Musée des beaux-arts de Mulhouse in 1866 by Eugène Koechlin.Son of Jean Koechlin, maker of indiennes in Mulhouse; son of Daniel Koechlin, chemist, specialist in colouring materials and methods of printing and applying designs to various materials: see POP database : "Malaine"&resPage=6&last_view="list"&idQuery="56d0bc-6540-133d-b60b-261d0f75e" The "salle de séances" (town council meeting room) of Munster's town hall (on the second floor) is or was decorated with two paintings whose author could be Malaine. Entitled "Vase of flowers with white butterflies" and "Vase of flowers with colored butterflies", they are painted in oil on canvas, and represent bouquets of flowers in their vase, which is placed in an arched niche<ref>Base POP : "Malaine"&resPage=6&last_view="list"&idQuery="a2f7b0-d7d2-e6c3-e477-c17e7f1a4e" and "Malaine"&resPage=7&last_view="list"&idQuery="587f82d-c7ee-1640-5fb6-a8ccbea233eb"</ref>.
In 1887, a painting from the Château de Vaugereau,This is where Baron died. It was also the same château that (temporarily) housed the Grand quartier général from June 8, 1940 near Briare (Roses, peonies, delphiniums and other flowers, in baskets set on marble consoles: 600 fr.) and two paintings once belonging to Baron de Longuève ("Fleurs dans des corbeilles. Deux pendants sur cuivre: 600 fr.")Dictionnaire des ventes d'art faites en France et à l'étranger pendant les XVIIIème & XIXe siècles, d'Hippolyte Mireur, (Volume 05) 1911 page 56: were sold. Given that the Baron was the owner of Château de Vaugereau, it could be that these three paintings are actually only two, since the sale catalog of his collection only shows the two pendants.The Malaine paintings appear on pp. 9-10 of the catalog:
Works by Malaine regularly come up for sale.invaluable.com
Wallpaper According to V. de Bruignac-La Hougue, wallpaper manufacturers called on designers from the Gobelins.Le Pouvoir des fleurs p. 102 Malaine began designing for wallpaper manufactures in the 1780s, for the Manufacture Arthur et Grenard (which became a royal manufacture in 1788), which was in operation from 1775 to 1789."Association of the manufacturer Jean Arthur and the merchant René Grenard" (according to the POP database), both of whom were also members of the "". See Bernard Jacqué, Un tournant du goût, le papier peint autour de 1797 [Petit journal d'exposition, Rixheim, Musée du papier peint, 12 July 1997-1 March 1997], Rixheim, MPP, 1997
French painter wrote that "Around the time of the French Revolution, we reached a new phase in the development of print design. A flower painter of great talent gave a more learned impulse to this varied art, through a more conscientious study of nature." That painter was Malaine, who used to sell his designs in Paris, and to send them over from Paris to Alsace. Lebert says that the designs he sold to Zuber in Rixheim "completely renewed the wall-paper industry. They are distinguished by the natural grace of each plant and a broad, well-felt touch, whose character draftsmen have rightly followed in the finest modern productions. These natural-sized groups of flowers, sometimes accompanied by fruit and birds, have always, since their appearance, served as a model for artists wishing to make good, complete studies." Lebert adds that when Malaine went back to Paris when it was safe again, the Gobelins tried to take him back, but Malaine "preferred to devote himself as a free-lance artist to painting pictures, while still working for the Zuber company and that of M. Steinbaechlein" : the manufactures sent him students., 'Notice sur les développements du dessin d'impression des toiles peintes en Alsace', in Revue d'Alsace, Fédération des sociétés d'histoire et d'archéologie d'Alsace (Colmar), 1865, p. 11-12: . There was no "Mr Steinbaechlein" as the name refers to that of the small river running through places like Dornach (now a part of Mulhouse. The Dollfus family had a textile factory there) or Morschwiller-le-Bas, with the Hofer (textile) Manufacture.