Philippe Auguste Hennequin

Philippe Auguste Hennequin (1763 - May, 1833), French painter, was a pupil of Jacques Louis David.

He was born at Lyon in 1763, distinguished himself early by winning the "Grand Prix," and left France for Italy. The disturbances at Rome, during the course of the Revolution, obliged him to return to Paris, where he executed the Federation of the 14th of July, and he was at work on a large design commissioned for the town-hall of Lyon, when in July 1794 he was accused before the revolutionary tribunal and thrown into prison.

Hennequin escaped, only to be anew accused and imprisoned in Paris, and after running great danger of death, seems to have devoted himself thenceforth wholly to his profession. At Paris he finished the picture ordered for the municipality of Lyon, and in 1801 produced his chief work, "Orestes pursued by the Furies" (Louvre, engraved by Landon, "Annales du Musée", vol. i. p. 105).

He was one of the four painters who competed when in 1802 Gros carried off the official prize for a picture of the Battle of Nazareth, and in 1808 Napoleon himself ordered Hennequin to illustrate a series of scenes from his German campaigns, and commanded that his picture of the "Death of General Salomon" should be engraved.

After 1815 Hennequin retired to Liège, and there, aided by subventions from the Government, carried out a large historical picture of the "Death of the Three Hundred in defence of Liège"--a sketch of which he himself engraved. In 1824 Hennequin settled at Tournai, and became director of the academy; he exhibited various works at Lille in the following year, and continued to produce actively up to the day of his death.----