Blaise Alexandre Desgoffe Biography | Oil Paintings

Blaise Alexandre Desgoffe was a French painter who specialized in finely finished still-life paintings. He was the nephew of the painter Alexandre Desgoffe. Desgoffe began his formal training at the Academie des Beaux-Arts under Hippolyte Flandrin.

He exhibited at the Paris Salons from 1857 to 1868 and was awarded a third-class medal in 1861 and a second-class medal in 1863. He was awarded one of Frances’ most coveted honors into the Légion d’Honneur in 1878. At the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900, he received a silver medal.

Blaise Alexandre Desgoffe had an incredible ability to paint elaborate gold jewelry, precious stones, crystals, military armaments draped in silks and tapestries from the Renaissance. Most of his work in the 1860s seems to have been based on sixteenth-century objects in the Louvre. He had an extraordinary ego and he did not waste time telling every one of his greatness. This was a fault and it made him very difficult to study under. Yet, Desgoffe had an incredible influence on still life painting in the United States.

William Michael Harnett, one America’s greatest tromp l’oeil still life painters, was the closest he ever came to answering the critics call for an American Desgoffe. William Merritt Chase’s bric-a-brac still lifes were also somewhat influenced by Blaise Alexandre Desgoffe.

Art Movement: Academic.
Artists Influencing Blaise Alexandre Desgoffe: Hippolyte Flandrin.
Artist's Biography compiled by Albert L. Mansour at The World's Artist.