Scheffer, ARY,

Scheffer, ARY, a painter, was the son of a German painter settled at Dordrecht in Holland, and was born there on 12th February 1795, studied under Guérin in Paris, and began his artistic career as a painter of genre pictures. But the Romanticism of the early 19th century captivated his fancy; he produced numerous pieces illustrative of Goethe's, Byron's, and Dante's works, such as 'Margaret at the Well,' 'Faust in his Study,' 'Mignon and her Father,' the 'Soldiers of Missolonghi,' the 'Suliote Women,' 'Francesca da Rimini,' 'Dante and Beatrice in Heaven,' and many others. Shortly after 1835 he turned to religious subjects, and painted (but did not always then exhibit) 'Christus Remunerator,' 'Christus Consolator,' 'The Temptation of Christ,' 'St Augustine and Monica,' &c. His best portraits were of the Duchess de Broglie, Prince Talleyrand, Queen Amélie, Liszt, Madame Viardot, Madame Guizot, La Fayette, Béranger, and Lamartine. He died at Argenteuil, near Paris, 15th June 1858. The pure and lofty expression he gives to his creations is a conspicuous feature of his work, which has been accused of sentimentality, and is inferior to that of many contemporaries in technique and execution. See Memoir by Mrs Grote (1860).