Charles Louis Muller

Biography of Charles Louis Muller ( 1815-1892 )

Charles Louis Müller was a famous french artist, portrait painter and decorator, nicknamed Müller de Paris. He first studied in Paris at the school of Fine Art, in Baron Gros’s class and then in Léon Cogniet’s one. He began to exhibit at the 1834’s Salon of French Artists and was used to exhibit there until 1892.

In 1850, he exhibited at the Salon of French Artists a painting titled « Call from the last  victims of the Terror at Saint Lazare’s jail in Paris, 7-9 Thermidor year II ». This very remarkable artwork strengthened the artist renown. Charles Müller became a major artist of his time. He was named member of the Hippolyte Flandrin Institute and became art works’ inspector at the Gobelins’ Manufactory. Elected as a member of the Fine Art Academy in 1864, Charles Müller was sit at the Universal Exhibition’s entry board during the Paris one in 1878. Decorated with the Legion of Honour in 1849, he was raised to officer rank in 1859.

Driven by this official recognition, he obtained many orders, especialy for the decoration of the Salon Denon’s celling and the Salle des Etats in the Louvre. Then he worked with the architect Hector Lefuel to create the New Louvre for Napoléon III.

Very popular into the parisian bourgeoisie, Charles Louis Müller exceled in portraits, like « Portrait of Madam, the superior of the Compassion’s nuns », « Portrait of a lady with fan ». He realised magnificent Orientalist portraits. The Orientalist artworks of this painter show the attraction of Orient on all the artists at that time. His portraits were executed in a mood very sensitive to the current exoticism in Paris at the end of the 19th century.

Charles Louis Müller was payed attention to the faces and to the expression of his characters. That is why he used to make many advanced studies, many drawings or paintings dedicated to the most expressive parts of the body, to the face and to the hands, before worrying about the wearing apparel and the setting.