Jacques Guillaume Lucien Amans (1801–1888) was a French
neoclassical

Neoclassicism

Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...

 portrait painter working in New Orleans in the 1840s

1840s

- Wars :*Mexican-American War was fought between Mexico and the United States of America. The latter emerged victorious and gained undisputed control over Texas while annexing portions of Arizona, California and New Mexico....

 and 1850s

1850s

- Wars :* Crimean war fought between Imperial Russia and an alliance consisting of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Second French Empire, the Kingdom of Sardinia and the Ottoman Empire...

.

Amans was born in Maastricht

Maastricht

Maastricht is situated on both sides of the Meuse river in the south-eastern part of the Netherlands, on the Belgian border and near the German border...

, a Belgian city at the time. His father, Paul Serge AMANS, born in Narbonne (F) in 1765, was a French officer (Capitaine-Adjudant de place de 1ère classe à Maastricht) of Napoléon. Jacques Guillaume Lucien Amans was trained in the French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 neoclassical tradition of portraiture. He exhibited at the Paris Salon

Paris Salon

The Salon , or rarely Paris Salon , beginning in 1725 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. Between 1748–1890 it was the greatest annual or biannual art event in the Western world...

 from 1831 to 1837. News of fellow-artist Jean Joseph Vaudechamp

Jean Joseph Vaudechamp

Jean Joseph Vaudechamp was a French painter born in Rambervillers, Vosges. He was a pupil of Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson. The market in Paris was competitive, so in the winter of 1831–32, he went to try his fortunes in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Louisiana Creole people identified with...

’s good fortune in finding patrons probably led Amans to visit Louisiana

Louisiana

Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...

 since the two artists traveled on the same ship from France to New Orleans in about 1837. Following Vaudechamp’s departure from Louisiana in 1839, Amans assumed the role as the most celebrated portraitist in Louisiana. In the mid 1840s he married Azoline Landreaux, the daughter of a St. Charles Parish sugar planter Pierre Honoré LANDREAUX and Joséphine ARMANT, and purchased Trinity Plantation on Bayou Lafourche

Bayou Lafourche

Bayou Lafourche, originally called Chetimachas River, is a bayou in southeastern Louisiana, United States, that flows into the Gulf of Mexico. The first settlements of Acadians in southern Louisiana were near Bayou Lafourche and Bayou des Écores, which led to a close association of the bayou with...

. Amans and Azoline moved back to France in 1856 where he died in 1888, château de Lévis Saint Nom (78), never having returned to Louisiana.

Work

Clara Mazureau, whose portrait Amans painted when she was a young girl, was the daughter of Aimée Grima and Étienne Mazureau

Etienne Mazureau

Étienne Mazureau had a distinguished career as a French and later a Louisiana lawyer, serving three times as Attorney General of Louisiana and as Secretary of State of Louisiana....

, Attorney General of Louisiana. Amans completed the portraits of several members of the Grima and Mazureau families in the 1840s. As in the Clara Mazureau portrait, Amans- favored the three quarter length pose.

Influenced by the French neoclassical artists Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres was a French Neoclassical painter. Although he considered himself to be a painter of history in the tradition of Nicolas Poussin and Jacques-Louis David, by the end of his life it was Ingres's portraits, both painted and drawn, that were recognized as his greatest...

 and Jacques-Louis David

Jacques-Louis David

Jacques-Louis David was an influential French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era...

, Amans emphasized meticulous draftsmanship

Drawing

Drawing is a form of visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, markers, styluses, and various metals .An artist who...

 and realism

Realism (arts)

Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...

 with particular attention to the sitter’s face and hands.

Famous subjects

Among Amans' most famous subjects was President Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson was the seventh President of the United States . Based in frontier Tennessee, Jackson was a politician and army general who defeated the Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend , and the British at the Battle of New Orleans...

, who sat for his portrait in 1840 (the 25th Anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans

Battle of New Orleans

The Battle of New Orleans took place on January 8, 1815 and was the final major battle of the War of 1812. American forces, commanded by Major General Andrew Jackson, defeated an invading British Army intent on seizing New Orleans and the vast territory the United States had acquired with the...

). The painting is rich in details of both physiognomy

Physiognomy

Physiognomy is the assessment of a person's character or personality from their outer appearance, especially the face...

and surroundings shows an elderly, though not frail, former president.