Maurice Jaubert de Becque (1878-1938)

 

‘Chimpansee’

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Signed lower left`

Pen, black and brown ink, washed, on paper, H. 29 x W. 20.5 cm

Born in Saumur Maurice de Becque moved to Paris where he studied at l’Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Paris, and since 1903 annually exhibited at the Salon d’Automne in Paris. He was not only a painter, engraver, designer of décors and costumes for l’Opera-Comique and le Théâtre du Chatelet, but is best known as illustrator. Paris editors recognized his talents and asked him to illustrate works including those of P. Adam, Beaudelaire, Daudet, Gautier, Juvénal, V. Blasco Ibanez, comte de Gobineau, Kipling, La Fontaine, Rimbaud, Stendhal, Francois Villon, and Le Roman de Renart.

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De Becque also was one of the founding fathers in 1912 of ‘Le Société des Peintres Animalier’. To study and draw exotic animals, he made frequent trips to the Zoo in Antwerp. In 1932 Maurice de Becque settled in Bretagne, where he drew and painted coast- and landscapes and portraits of sailors, which he exhibited in Brest.

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