Joseph Bouvier (1839-1888) was a prominent British Painter.

Life and Family of Joseph Bouvier

Jules Bouvier, a well-established Paris born painter had six children’s and Joseph Bouvier was one of them. Jules Bouvier himself and exhibited his works at British Institution and Suffolk Street.

Augustus Bouvier, elder brother of Joseph Bouvier migrated to London with his family. He was also involved in painting but mostly used oil and watercolors to paint figures, portraits although his main subjects were to paint women dressed elegantly in special attire. Augustus was also known for illustrating various books. He exhibited 9 of his works at Royal Academy, 7 works at British Institution,6 works at Suffolk Street.

G.A.Bouvier, another brother of Joseph exhibited 11 works at Royal Academy. U.Bouvier exhibited 4 works at the Royal Academy, 3 works at British Institution and 8 works at Suffolk Street. Miss Bouvier also exhibited 3 of her work at Suffolk Street.

Joseph Bouvier’s Famous Works

Joseph Bouvier work typically depicts the strong taste of the Victorian Era of his type. He painted classically focusing on very minute details related to Victorian genre and he tried to resemble his work with Charles Baxter and Myles Birket Foster.

Joseph Exhibited 25 of his works at the Royal Academy from 1839 to 1873. From 1845 to 1867 he exhibited at 17 works at the British Institution and 61 works at the Suffolk Street from 1841 to 1874.

His first work “The Lacemaker” from the table Gasper Netcher and Second Work ” A lady Feeding a Parrot ” from the table by Frans Van Mieris are presented at National Gallery Museum in London.

Here are some of his published and lithographed works

1. Gloires de l’Opera. No.11 Carlotta Grisi and Perrot Dansant la Polka lithographed by Fangonde and Haguental of Paris.
2. George Gordon Byron lithographed and published by Adam Friedel in February 1825.
4. Queen Victoria on horseback in the Royal Park at Windsor hand-colored lithographed and published in 1837.
5. Queen Victoria hand-colored lithograph and published in 1837 by William Spooner.
6. Court D’Orsay’s Portrait of Queen Victoria exhibited at Mr. Griffiths Gallery in 1847.
7. Sir Robert Peel lithographed and published by William Spooner.

Joseph Bouvier’s Artworks

Joseph painted a series of painting consisting of fairies during the year 1853. Two paintings from that series are quite famous which are

1. A sylph and her Fairy Attendants Besprinkling the Early Morning Dew

   

In this painting, early morning pearls of dew are being sprinkled by a fairy of the Rosicrucian spirit of the air with her attendants on the rose and lilies. Dew was considered to be the genuine and pure form of water and was a necessity for alchemist science. Joseph brought his imagination of fairies and magical word on to canvass with different colors and intermittent details that gets dissolved in the space.

2. The Changeling “A lovely boy stolen from an Indian king”

   

This painting represents the “Changeling” a belief that fairies take away healthy children’s and keeps starving pixies replacing them. Here Joseph depicted that a child is taken in the sky by four fairies and a pixie is placed and watch them with a wicked look from the ferns shadow. This notion of Changeling is also referred by Shakespeare in his Henry VI.

Few of his other artworks are

1. The First Steps

   
2. Hide and Seek

   

3. The Ball of Wool

   

4. The Fountain of Ceres