Jean-Baptiste Mauzaisse

Jean-Baptiste Mauzaisse was born on 1 November 1784 in Corbeil, France, to a family of modest means. At around nineteen he left home for Paris and entered the studio of Francois-Andre Vincent at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, beginning his formal training around 1803. He made his Salon debut in 1808 and, in 1812, won a first-class gold medal for L'Arabe pleurant son coursier (Arab Lamenting the Death of His Courser), a canvas now held at the Musee des Beaux-Arts d'Angers.

Success at the Salon opened the door to state commissions. For Louis XVIII he painted the mythological figures Promethee and Tantale, completed in 1819 and now in the Musee de Picardie in Amiens, and he decorated apartments and ceilings at the Louvre, including the King's Grand Cabinet and the Rotonde de Mars around 1821 to 1822, work in what is today known as the Salle des Bijoux. In 1823 he was named a Chevalier of the Legion d'honneur in recognition of this Louvre decorative work. His subjects extended to Napoleonic imagery as well: a portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte was painted in oil and issued as a lithographic edition by the Galerie du Palais Royal in 1825.

Under the July Monarchy, Mauzaisse continued to work for the state, contributing decorative and history paintings to the Versailles museum program and receiving a personal commission from Louis-Philippe in 1837 to portray the king at the Battle of Valmy. He also completed religious commissions for the cathedrals of Nantes and Bourges. He died in Paris on 15 November 1844.

Mauzaisse's reputation rests primarily on institutional and archival record rather than a body of modern critical writing. His Salon gold medal in 1812, his Legion d'honneur in 1823, and his Louvre and Versailles commissions place him among the recognized decorative and history painters of the Restoration and July Monarchy, and his works are documented in the Louvre, the Musee des Beaux-Arts d'Angers, the Musee de Picardie, and the Musee Carnavalet, among other French collections. No verifiable, exact-wording assessment from a named critic in a major outlet was located in current research; his standing is best evidenced by these institutional holdings and official honors rather than by quotable critical commentary.

Mauzaisse's auction market is thin and largely confined to portraits, history subjects, and prints. Artprice records roughly sixty-four lots at auction across his career. Aggregated auction data puts his highest recorded price for a painting at approximately USD 1,003,405, though the specific work, auction house, and sale date behind that figure have not been independently confirmed from primary auction records as of this writing. No higher sale has been identified, and most of his other recorded results, particularly prints and smaller portraits, sell for a small fraction of that figure.

No catalogue raisonne exists for Mauzaisse, so attribution and authentication rely on Salon and Louvre commission records, museum documentation, and auction provenance rather than a certification body. There is no gallery or estate that formally represents his work today; Didier Aaron currently deals in individual pieces, and his paintings and prints otherwise surface periodically at auction houses including Christie's and French salerooms such as those tracked by Gazette Drouot. His market is thin and uneven, with one painting setting an approximate seven-figure high against a broader base of much lower-value results, so collectors should treat that high price point as an outlier rather than as representative of typical prices for his work.