GALLAIT, Louis
Belgian painter. Although he came from an impoverished background, he entered the Académie of Tournai in 1823, where he worked first under Cornelis Cels and then under Philippe Auguste Hennequin, a pupil of Jacques-Louis David. Hennequin instilled in him the principles of Neo-classical drawing and had a profound influence on his choice of subject-matter. Gallait’s first Classical subject, the Death of Epaminondas (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Tournai), and his many early drawings show this influence clearly. Gallait’s first success was with Caesar’s Tribute (Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Ghent) exhibited in 1832 at the Salon of Ghent.
On the advice of Hennequin, Gallait went to Antwerp to continue his training under Mathieu Van Bree. Here he discovered the Baroque colour of Peter Paul Rubens and the nascent Romanticism of Gustaf Wappers. During this period he produced a Christ Healing the Blind Man, which was bought by the cathedral of Tournai (in situ). Gallait used the proceeds of this sale to go to Paris to continue his studies. He familiarized himself with the Old Master works in the Louvre and sought to achieve a calm and restrained Romanticism in such works as the Oath of Vargas (Wallace Collection, London). He received commissions for the Musée Historique at Versailles, including a portrait of Charles de Gontant, Duc de Biron (Versailles, Château), which, with the Oath of Vargas and Job (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lille), was exhibited at the Salon of 1836 in Paris.
He settled in Brussels, and as an artist employed by the State he exercised considerable influence, and for a long period he was the leader of public taste in Brussels.
