Albert de belleroche biography

Albert de Belleroche (1864-1944) was.
Www.printed-editions.com › blog › modern-art-the-lithography-of-bell-ep.
Albert Belleroche was a Welsh painter and lithographer, who lived most of his childhood and his adulthood in Paris and England.

•

Modern Art: The Lithography of Bell Epoque Artist Albert de Belleroche | Davidson Galleries

Albert de Belleroche (1864-1944) was born at Swansea in Wales on October 22, 1864, the younger son of Edward Charles, Marquis de Belleroche. The Belleroche family bore the ancient French title de Belleroche, but because Albert’s forbearers were Huguenots, they left France and settled in England. Albert’s mother came from Brussels, and throughout his life Albert would maintain strong ties with Belgium. His father, however, died when de Belleroche was a child, and his mother, Alice, who was introduced by the Marquis of Queensbury to Harry Vane Milbank, the elder son of Sir Frederick Milbank, remarried in 1871 when Albert was seven. The family moved to Paris where Alice, a great beauty and engaging hostess, achieved fame for her salons at 23 Avenue Montaigne near the Champs-Elysees.

A turning point in Albert’s future came when Harry Milbank asked Carolus-Duran, one of France’s leading portrait painters to paint Alice. It was at a dinner party she gave for Edward VII, then Prince of

•

Albert Belleroche

British, 1864-1944

Although well represented in museum collections in America and in Europe, the name Albert Belleroche is unfamiliar to all but a few connoisseurs. This was Belleroche’s own doing, as he was highly regarded by the leading critics and artists of his time. A modest man of independent means, Belleroche did not create with commercial intent, and disliked involvement in the promotion and sale of his own work. Thus, with the passage of time, particularly fine examples of the work of this artist, who valued privacy to the point of being unapproachable, have become difficult to find.

Albert Belleroche was born in 1864, the son of Edward Charles, the Marquis de Belleroche, whose family, one of the oldest Houses of Europe, was connected to the Royal Family of France. His Huguenot forebears left France and emigrated to Britain after the Revocation des Edits de Nantes in 1685. Thus, Count Albert de Belleroche was born a British subject in Swansea, Wales. Although he preferred to be known simple as “Belleroche”, thereby declining the use of his ancient

•

Although born in Wales, he was the son of the Marquis de Belleroche, of one of the most ancient French noble families who, being Huguenots, had fled to England in 1685. In 1871, following the death of his father, he moved back to Paris with his family. After he had finished school there, he studied at the studio of Carolus Duran, and spent long hours copying at the Paris museums. He soon became familiar with the leading painters and intellectuals of the day, and became a founder member of the Salon d'Automne, exhibiting alongside the Impressionists and associating with Emile Zola, Oscar Wilde, Albert Moore, Renoir, Degas, Helleu and Toulouse-Lautrec. Toulouse-Lautrec and Belleroche were exact contemporaries, who first met at the age of eighteen. Belleroche painted Toulouse-Lautrec's portrait and shared with him a passion for the model Lili, who epitomised the Belle Epoch aesthetic of Toulouse-Lautrec's most celebrated posters. Lili became Belleroche's favourite model and mistress. In 1882 Belleroche also met the already acclaimed American painter John Singer Sargent, who recognise