Antoine-Claude Ponthus-Cinier (French, 1812–1885)
b. 1812 — d. 1885
Until 1980 the only known facts about Ponthus-Cinier were to be found in Audin and Vial's Dictionnaire des artistes et ouvriers d'art du lyonnais (1918-19). Two exhibitions of the work of nineteenth-century Lyonese landscape painters in the early 1980s prompted more thorough research into the life of this artist.1 Although he was born in Lyons, Ponthus-Cinier seems to have studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, enrolled in the studio of Delaroche (q.v.).2 In 1841 he received the second Prix de Rome for historical landscape painting and left for Italy for two years. Returning to France in 1844, he settled in Lyons but spent his entire life roaming France in search of sites of natural beauty that would remind him of Italy. He left numerous views of Alpine landscapes, and of Savoie, the Dauphiné, Ardèche, the Massif Central, and the Pyrenees. He had a special preference, however, for the regions close to Lyons-the Dombes, the Bugey, and the Ain, as well as the town of Crémieu and its surroundings, which Appian (q.v.) and Ravier (q.v.) would later depict. Ponthus-Cinier exhibited in Lyons from 1838 until his death and in Paris from 1841 to 1867. He also participated in various provincial Salons in cities like Strasbourg, Grenoble, Marseilles, Montpellier, and Toulouse. Ponthus-Cinier was especially fond of depicting landscapes characterized by the combination of rocky slopes, which structured the site, and vegetation, which animated it. Frequently a body of water, reflecting the light, provided a poetic note to these somewhat arid views made up of earth and stone. The artist's work was usually well received by critics, although some reproached him for the monotony of his compositions and choice of color.
