ATTRIBUTED TO ALEXIS DULONG (1804 - 1885) - Lot 59

ATTRIBUTED TO ALEXIS DULONG (1804 - 1885) "The Abbey of Graville". Oil on canvas, signed lower right and dated 1838. Titled on the back. H 54 x W 46 cm This X, whose name appears on the list of painters in the Centenary Book, is first known as one of the sons of his father, the great physicist and chemist Pierre Dulong (X 1801/directeur des études à l'École from 1830 to 1838): the one of Dulong and Petit's law, you'll remember. Alexis (1804-1885) became an artilleryman after Polytechnique, left the army in 1838, then turned to railroads (hadn't his father already worked with Arago on the behavior of steam in locomotive boilers?) Professional circumstances then led Alexis into the railroad field, then abuzz with initiative and innovation. Alexis Dulong played a small part in this effervescence, in both a professional and family context. But Alexis also had a vocation for painting, often as a corollary to architecture: our School's database records that he exhibited landscapes at the 1836 and 1837 Salons. No doubt he found it profitable to talk with his brother, who was also attracted to painting in an even more professional way. Alphonse-Louis Dulong (1811-1857), a pupil of Steuben and Ingres who exhibited at the Salons from 1835 to 1848, was appointed Professor of Drawing at X in 1844, and is said to have produced lithographic plates for the drawing class.