Louis Gustave Ricard

Louis Gustave Ricard (1 September 1823, Marseille – 23 January 1873, Paris) was a French painter, known primarily for his portraits.

His father was a well-off money changer and lender, which allowed him the time to attend courses at the École supérieure d'art et de design Marseille-Méditerranée [fr].

[1] In 1843, he received permission from his father to go to Paris, where he enrolled at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts and studied history painting with Léon Cogniet.

During the last ten years of his life, preoccupied with equaling the Old Masters (especially Da Vinci and Rembrandt), he began to use unnatural lighting effects; blurring outlines and creating melancholic or dreamy expressions.

Some of this attitude is credited to the influence of his beloved sister, a nun in Nancy, who he visited frequently and spoke with at length.