Jacques-Laurent Agasse
Jacques-Laurent Agasse (1767–1849), a Genevan painter specialising in animals and landscapes, first trained at the Calabri Drawing School in Geneva under Jacques Cassin and Georges Vanière. From 1786, he continued his training in Paris in Jacques-Louis David’s studio and attended courses in anatomy and dissection, knowledge that would inform his precise observation of the horses and animals he painted. The Revolution brought him back to Geneva.
There, he worked with Firmin Massot and Wolfgang-Adam Töpffer on landscape studies and collaborative paintings. Around 1800, with the patronage of George Pitt, the future Lord Rivers, he settled in London and devoted himself in particular to his patron’s horses and dogs. He exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy from 1801 to 1845.
His repertoire expanded to include wild animals observed in menageries, genre scenes, Thames landscapes and portraits. A commission from the Royal College of Medicine in 1821 led him to depict the animal crossbreeds studied by Lord Morton. Agasse died in London after a career spent mainly in England; his work is held, among other places, at the Musée d’art et d’histoire in Geneva.
He was the painter Jacques-Laurent, sometimes referred to simply as Agasse.
