Biographers have largely ignored Louis Pasteur's many and varied connections with art and artists. This article is the second in a series of the authors' studies of Pasteur's friendships with artists. This research project has uncovered data that enlarge the great medical chemist's biography, throwing new light on a variety of topics including his work habits, his social life, his artistic sensibilities, his efforts to lobby on behalf of his artist friends, his relationships to their patrons and to his own patrons, and his use of works of art to foster his reputation as a leader in French medical science. In a prior article, the authors examined his unique working relationship with the Finnish painter Albert Edelfelt and the creation of the famous portrait of Pasteur in his laboratory in the mid-1880s. The present study documents his especially warm friendship with three French artists who came from Pasteur's home region, the Jura, or from neighboring Alsace. A forthcoming study gives an account of his friendships with Max Claudet and Paul Dubois, both of whom made important images of Pasteur, and it offers further illustrations of his devotion to the fine arts.
Pasteur L. Correspondance 1840–1895. In: Vallery-Radot P, 4 vols. Paris: B Grasset, 1940–1951, II:650 (3 November 1878, to Henner). Hereafter Pasteur's letters are cited simply as Corr. followed by volume number, page, date, and correspondent's name.
2.
Histoire d'un savant par un ignorant that could be rendered as “A Layman's Life of a Scientist,” though the English translation (New York, 1885) carried a bland title, Louis Pasteur, His Life and Labours, and was credited on the title page to “His Son-in-Law,” that is, René Vallery-Radot.
3.
DebréP. Louis Pasteur trans E Forster, Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.
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GeisonGL. The private science of Louis Pasteur, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.
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HansenB. Picturing medical progress from Pasteur to Polio: a history of mass media images and popular attitudes in America, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2009.
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DubosRJ. Louis Pasteur, free lance of science, Boston: Little, Brown, and Co, 1950, pp. 26–27.
7.
Debre. 1998 (Op. cit. ref 3); 129–130.
8.
WrotnowskaD. Pasteur et l'art. Médecine de France1955; 66: 9–16.
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GillardJ. Rappelez-vous Pasteur: L'arboisien: L'artiste et ses amis artistes, Arbois: Association Arbois-Pasteur, 1995, pp. 41–71.
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Weisberg RE and Hansen B. Collaboration of art and science in Albert Edelfelt's portrait of Louis Pasteur: the making of an enduring medical icon. Bulletin of the History of Medicine 2015; 89: 59–91.
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HansenBWeisbergRE. Louis Pasteur, his friendships with the artists Max Claudet (1840-1893) and Paul Dubois (1829-1905), and his public image in the 1870s and 1880s. Journal of Medical Biography. (forthcoming.
12.
Debre. 1998 (Op. cit. ref 3); 325.
13.
Vallery-RadotR. The life of Pasteur trans Devonshire RL, New York: Doubleday, Page, and Co, 1915, pp. 14. quoting from a letter to his parents from Besançon, later published in Corr. I: 9–10, 26 January 1840.
14.
Corr. III: 418, 29 May 1884, Madame Pasteur to Marie Louise.
15.
Debre. 1998 (Op. cit. ref 3); 325.
16.
Geison GL. 1995 (Op. cit. ref. 4): 46.
17.
Debre. 1998 (Op. cit. ref 3); 137.
18.
Venturi L. Les archives de l' impressionnisme: Lettres de Renoir, Monet, Pissarro, Sisley et autres. Mémoires de Paul Durand-Ruel. Documents 2 vols. Paris and New York: Durand-Ruel Éditeurs, 1939, I:115.
19.
Corr. II:639, 21 June 1876, to Henner.
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Corr. II:638, 19 June 1876, to Duclaux.
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Corr. III:20, 13 April 1877, to Henner.
22.
Corr. II:642, 5 July 1876, to Henner.
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Devillers H. J-J Henner. In Société des Aquarellistes Français, Grands peintres français et étrangers, 2 vols. Paris: H. Launette, 1884-1886, II: 210–211.
24.
Corr. II: 643–644, 10 August 1876, to Henner.
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Corr. III: 118, 12 November 1879, to Henner.
26.
Salomon-Bayet C. La gloire de Pasteur. Romantisme 1998; 100: 159–169, at p. 167.
27.
Pictures for the Salon. New York Times, 24 April 1886, pp. 1–2.
ClaretieJ. La vie à Paris 1881: deuxième année, Paris: Victor Havard, éditeur, 1881, pp. 31–32.
30.
Corr. II: 644, 10 August 1876, to Henner.
31.
Les hommes du jour: M. J-J Henner par un critique d'art, Paris: G Decaux, 1878.
32.
Corr. III: 58, 11 July 1878, to Henner.
33.
Sève J ed. Auguste Pointelin: Clarté crépusculaire (1839–1933). Arbois: Mairie d' Arbois, Musée d'art, hôtel Sarret de Grozon, 2013, especially P Bruniaux, ‘Une vie consacrée à l'art', pp. 4–13.
34.
Bruniaux P. 2013 (Op. cit ref. 33): pp. 5–6.
35.
Bruniaux P. Pasteur à Arbois (Thèse, Docteur en médecine, Université de Franche-Comté, 2005), p. 81.
36.
Corr. III: 283, 29 May 1882, to J-B Dumas.
37.
Bruniaux P. 2013 (Op. cit. ref. 33): p. 6.
38.
Pasteur as an Artist. New York Times, 1 October 1895, p. 30, reprinting the exact article, which had originally been untitled, from The Saturday Review 1895; 80: 2084, p. 430. We suspect the writer might have been Jules Marcou, a friend of Pasteur since childhood, who also knew Pointelin.
39.
Corr. III: 22, 2 June 1877, to Henner.
40.
Corr. III: 135, 21 May 1880, to Henner.
41.
The painting Pasteur calls “Madeleine” was listed in contemporary sources as “La Liseuse” or “La Femme qui lit,” that is, “woman reading.” A nude woman with long red hair reclines on her belly on what might be a fur rug and holds an open book. That the pose recalls that of a Madeleine by Correggio was noted in H Houssaye, Le Salon de 1883, Revue des deux mondes, 1883; 57: pp. 596–627, at p. 605. Images of the Magdalen in 19th century art are analyzed in Susan Haskins Mary Magdalen: myth and metaphor. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1993, pp. 317–365 (pp. 341–342 for Henner's work).
42.
Corr. III: 358, 21 May 1883, to Henner.
43.
Corr. III: 414, 22 March 1884, to Henner.
44.
Bruniaux P. 2005 (Op. cit. ref. 35): p. 81.
45.
Léger C. Lettres inédites de Louis Pasteur. La Revue, 1–15 October, 1916. See also the editor's annotation in Corr. II: 657, 19 December 1876, to Claudet.
46.
Corr. II: 650–652, 5 November 1876, to Blanc and Corr. II: 652–653, 6 November 1876, to Blanc.
47.
Corr. II: 653, 15 November 1876, to Dubois.
48.
Corr. II: 654–655, 3 December 1876, to Jules Marcou.
49.
Pasteur L. Oeuvres In: Vallery-Radot P (Ed.), 7 vols. Paris: Masson, 1922–1939, VII, pp. 311–312.
50.
Vallery-RadotR. Le vie de Pasteur, Paris: Librairie Hachette, 1900, pp. 616–618.
51.
WagnerAM. Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux: sculptor of the second empire, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986, pp. 129–132. offers perceptive analysis of Les Adieux and Perraud's academic style more generally.
