Ary Scheffer (1795-1858) was a Dutch-born academic painter who spent his entire active career in France. He developed an extreme classical style, partly as a reaction against the Romanticism so much in vogue sat the time. He ceased exhibiting at the Salon after 1848, his Royalist sympathies putting him out of official favour.As was the case with most academic painters his work became very unfashionable indeed in the 20th century. His choice of literary subject matter for his paintings and his later taste for religious art pretty much guaranteed his critical eclipse.
