Costantinople, Vieux Quartier

Jean-Baptiste Henri Durand-Brager was a French marine and landscape painter, engraver and photographer. Durand-Brager was born in a village in Brittany overlooking the sea. He joined the Navy and became an officer, reaching the rank of captain. As a young man he traveled extensively, in Europe, Algeria and along the Atlantic coast of Africa. Passionate about painting, he finally entered the ateliers of the painters Eugène Isabey and Théodore Gudin where he learned the craft of art, and at the same time practiced the fledgling art of photography. But in 1840, here he set sail again with the expedition charged with bringing the ashes of Napoleon I back to France from the island of St. Helena. Returning home, he painted numerous pictures of naval battles ("Combat de la frégate Niemen contre les frégates Aréthusa et Amethyst," 1843), of which some were commissioned by the French government: ("Bombardement de Mogador," "Prise de l'île de Mogador," "Combat naval devant la côte marocaine," 1845). In 1842 he arrived with the fleet in Montevideo and took the opportunity to make some explorations of Uruguay and Brazil. Other cruises to Tangier, Mogador and Madagascar followed, from which he brought back drawings, paintings and photographs of the places he visited. During the Crimean War (1853-1855), he witnessed the siege of Sevastopol (1854-1855). On this occasion he was also an official photographer, indeed, one of fifteen photographers present in that conflict. He then participated in an expedition to the Black Sea and, at the end of the conflict, painted a "Battle of Sinopolis" at the request of the Tsar of Russia. While naval battles ("Bombardement de Shimonoseki," 1869) and seascapes still constituted an important part of his artistic production, Durand-Brager also produced paintings of oriental landscapes, such as "Le port de Trébizonde" and "Bateaux sur le Bosphore." Alongside his activity as a painter, he also tried his hand at engraving and illustrating books and periodicals. He had as pupils the painters Charles Euphrasie Kuwasseg and Edouard Adam. In 1863 he illustrated Arthur Mangin's work Travels and Discoveries of the 19th Century. Jean-Baptiste Henri Durand-Brager died in Paris at the age of sixty-five, and was always considered a master of marine painting. Many of his works can be found in the Galleries of Versailles.