Victor Huguet, The Falconers

Artist Biography

Huguet studied in Marseilles with Emile Loubon, a French painter who similarly depicted panoramic scenes including figures and animals and was familiar with the Middle East. Huguet later enhanced his painterly style under the guidance of Eugène Fromentin in Paris (although Fromentin did not provide an office workshop of teaching).  Huguet travelled to Egypt at the age of seventeen.The following year, in 1853, he accompanied marine painter Jean-Baptiste-Henri Durand-Brager to Crimea before the siege of Sevastopol. As a visitor to North Africa and Senegal, Durand-Bager also influenced Huguet’s passion for travelling the world. Huguet’s canvases were generally set in Algeria, Libya, Egypt, and occasionally Constantinople.  He excelled at depicting horses, and his paintings quickly won favour with collectors.  He exhibited at the Salons of Marseille and Paris in 1859 and at the Society of French Orientalist Painters in 1893.  Although his works are seldom dated, his technique, over the years, became more impressionistic and his palette lighter and richer.  Works by Huguet can be found in the museums of Nîmes, Montpellier and Marseille.  

Bibliography: L. Thornton, The Orientalists, Traveling Painters 1828-1908, A.C.R.  Edition, Courbevoie (Paris), 1983.