Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Charles Paul Landon

LANDON, Charles Paul (1760–1826), French painter and art-author, was born at Nonant in 1760, entered the studio of Regnault, and carried off the first prize of the Academy in 1792. After his return from Italy, disturbed by the Revolution, he seems to have abandoned painting for letters, but he began to exhibit in 1795, and continued to do so at various intervals up to 1814. His Leda obtained an award of merit in 1801, and is now in the Louvre. His Mother’s Lesson, Paul and Virginia Bathing, and Dædalus and Icarus have been engraved; but his works on painting and painters, which reach nearly one hundred volumes, now form his chief title to be remembered. In spite of a complete want of critical accuracy, an extreme carelessness in the biographical details, and the feebleness of the line engravings by which they are illustrated, Landon’s Annales du Musée, in 33 vols., form a vast repertory of compositions by masters of every age and school, which will always have value for the writer on art. Besides this work and many others of less importance, Landon published Lives of Celebrated Painters, in 22 vols.; An Historical Description of Paris, 2 vols.; a Description of London, with 42 plates; and descriptions of the Luxembourg, of the Giustiniani collection, and of the gallery of the Duchesse de Berry. He died at Paris in 1826.