Turpin de Crisse, a scion of a long ennobled family from Anjou and the son of a painter, came of age during the revolution. He pursued his talent for painting and became an artist and diplomat in service to Napoleon's court, becoming chamberlain to Empress Josephine in 1809. Turpin de Crissé also played an important role in the arts establishment during the Restoration, becoming Inspector General of Fine Arts in 1825. He traveled to Switzerland and Italy, pursuing painting and collecting art and antiquities, much of which he left to the museum that bears his name in Angers.
This drawing, made in 1830, records the interior of the kitchens of the old chateau at Angrie, with cooks washing dishes while everyone warms themselves at the hearth. The sixteenth-century chateau, located outside of Angers in western France, was in the artist's family, and it was there that he and his siblings, along with his mother and several Turpin relatives, sheltered during the years following the 1789 revolution. In 1830 Turpin de Crissé spent the month of December in Anjou when he could have produced the drawing. Despite his fondness for the building, a little over a decade after this drawing was made, he demolished the chateau and constructed a new one in the neo-gothic style in 1846-47.
Initialed and dated in brown ink on the table at left, "T. T. 1830."
Johnson, Alexander B. V., former owner.
Olson, Roberta J. M., former owner.