Goupil & Cie

He married Victoire Brincard (1808–1886), originally from Belfort, in August 1829, and had five children: Léon, Amélie, Albert, Marie and Blanche.

Jean-Baptiste Adolphe Goupil was elected mayor of Saint-Martin-aux-Chartrains (Calvados) from 1875 to 1893 where he owned the "castle of the whole city".

[2] From the outset, the house specialised in the sale of engravings after pictures by Ingres, Hippolyte Delaroche and Léopold Robert.

To feed an emerging middle-class market with inexpensive art, Goupil's workshop outside Paris employed skilled craftsmen to produce engraved, etched, photographic and even sculptural copies of paintings in vast quantities.

In 1861, he became partner of Goupil & Cie. As Uncle Cent had no children, his nephews were evidently supposed to follow him up in the firm: Vincent entered in 1869, Theo in 1873.

Between 1881 and 1890, Theo was manager of Goupil & Cie's branch on Boulevard Montmartre, from which he sold about 1,000 paintings, including works by members of the Barbizon School like Corot and Daubigny.

[8] In these years, Vincent took up his vocation and began to study art, based on the Cours de dessin, compiled by Charles Bargue "in collaboration with J.-L. Gérôme" and edited by Goupil & Cie, 1868–1873.

In 1880, he asked his former director Herman Gijsbert Tersteeg, at Goupil's in The Hague, to lend him a copy, which he finally received with the support of his brother Theo.

Vincent van Gogh fell ill and retired in 1872 due to his degrading health, to settle in Princenhage for the summers and in Menton for the winters, but remained a partner until 1878.

Today, Goupil & Cie specializes in modern and contemporary art as well as luxury and exceptional products.