Jean Paul Milliet (1844-1918): pittore, viaggiatore e collezionista di fotografie nell’Italia dell’Ottocento

Abstract

Jean Paul Milliet (1844-1918)

Painter, Traveller and Collector of Photographs in Nineteenth-century Italy

Jean Paul Milliet, a young student of the École des Beaux Arts in Paris, arrived in Florence for the first time in August 1866. It was the only stop on a training visit that led him to compete with the great masters of the Florentine fifteenth century. Subsequently, the painter undertook a sort of Grand tour of the so-called ‘Bel Paese’ (i.e. Italy) in full autonomy. It allowed him to explore the 'places' of masterpieces learned by the famous book ‘The Lifes’ of Vasari (Le Vite di Vasari), such as Giotto's frescoes in Padua, Luini's works in Milan and then again Florence, in Orvieto and in Rome. Visual training through engraved prints, training trips, the contemplation of the ancient masters of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and the creation of an iconographic collection rich in photographic reproductions of works of art are various types of experience lived by Paul that mark a figure that is both universal and hybrid at the time. It allows, albeit in the analysis of the private affair, to outline a very significant case study of those cultural exchanges between Italy and France that were peculiar in the second half of the nineteenth century.