Marie Adrien Persac: Louisiana Artist

by Marie Adrien Persac, Barbara Sorelle Bacot, Sally Kittredge Reeves

Marie Adrien Persac (1823-1873) was a French-born Louisiana artist who worked in a range of mediums to produce a unique view of the lower Mississippi Valley at midcentury. In the first catalogued exhibition devoted solely to this multifaceted but overlooked talent, paintings, drawings, maps, and photographs from numerous holdings have been brought together to present fresh insights and reevaluate this artist's place in the annals of American history and material culture. Due in part to his broad talents artist, cartographer, architect, civil engineer, photographer, and art teacher Persac's work is of major importance to Southern history researchers and art historians. His paintings of south Louisiana plantation houses have captured that now-varnished lifestyle in minute detail, approximating the exactitude of architectural drafting. Today this series is invaluable to scholars of the period, as is Persac's painting of a steamboat interior -- the only one known to exist -- and another French Opera House, which burned to the ground in 1919.

Hardcover

First published September 12, 2000

Reviews

[Charles Heath · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bobby Ticknor hates Persac.

[Tara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great book if you're interested in a very specific kind of Louisiana art, that of Plan Book drawings, which were used by notaries in the 1800's to sell houses and buildings.