Charles Bertrand D'Entraygues

Biography of Charles Bertrand D'Entraygues ( 1850-1929 )

Charles d’Entraygues was born in Brives in 1851. He first studied at the Fine Art School of Toulouse before joining Paris where he became Isidore Pils’ pupil at the Fine Arts. In 1876, he exhibited for the first time at the Salon of French Artists a painting staging children and titled Encumbering choice.

He gained an honourable merit in 1899 and became a member of the Society of French Artists in 1904.

Painter of genre scenes and landscapes, he dedicated himself to children scenes with  humorous style. He had great success with public and critic during the 1880’s with his paintings depicting most of the time altar boys in their playtime. He settled in Ecouan, near Paris where many painters were living on the second half of the nineteenth century.

About his painting Ecouan’s choir, with a very similar subject than our painting, one can read in the magazine L’illustration «… An analogous subject has already been realised by many painters, seduced by the diversity of all these fresh children’s faces, by the mutiny of their attitudes, by the mischief of their eyes. This is with a rare pleasure that Mr d’Entraygues has tried to diversify once more a theme with novelty, giving it, through his dexterity and his talent, a savour of unexpected and new… »

With a few exceptions, he exhibited every years at the Salon of French Artists between 1879 and 1906. His paintings of altar boys caught during their leisure activities or children from modest families at mealtimes achieved great success. In United States, he was very successfull among collectors when the book « Famous Paintings of the World » has been published in 1894, as his 1887’s Salon painting The end of the day was reproduced in it.