If Meissonier is beginning to find his proper level after having been
grossly overrated, Louis Gustave Ricard (1824-1873), one of the most
remarkable portrait painters of his century, has only just in recent
years been rescued from almost complete oblivion. A pupil of L.
Cogniet, Ricard spent several years in copying the works and analysing
the technical methods of the old masters, and in travelling in Italy,
Belgium, Holland, and England. It was not before his return to Paris
in 1850 that he began to exhibit. Ricard was exclusively a portrait
painter. Technically his early studies enabled him to arrive at a
method of singular morbidezza and warm luminosity. There is a certain
truth in a modern critic’s description of Ricard’s pigments as being
composed of “crushed jewels, flower juice, and gold and silver powder.”
The great merit of Ricard’s portraits is, however, his extraordinary
insight into his sitters’ psychology. To him a portrait meant more than
a correct record of the model’s superficial aspect: he endeavoured to
paint the very soul in so far as it can be read from eyes and lips. In
this respect he is the descendant of Giorgione and the forerunner of
Watts and Carrière. The portraits of _The Painter Heilbuth_ (No. 778A),
of _Mme. de Calonne_ (No. 778E), of _His Own Portrait_ (No. 778), and
the badly cracked _Portrait of Paul de Musset_ (No. 778B), may be
quoted as admirable instances of his art.