Charles Meryon

Charles Meryon (sometimes Méryon, 23 November 1821 – 14 February 1868) was a French artist who worked almost entirely in etching, as he had colour blindness. Although now little-known in the English-speaking world, he is generally recognised as the most significant etcher of 19th century France. His most famous works are a series of views powerfully conveying his distinctive Gothic vision of Paris. He also had mental illness, dying in an asylum.

Meryon's mother was a dancer at the Paris Opera, who moved to London around 1814 to dance there. In 1818 she had a daughter by Viscount Lowther, the future William Lowther, 2nd Earl of Lonsdale, a wealthy aristocrat and politician, and 1821 Charles Meryon by Dr Charles Lewis Meryon, an English doctor, returning to Paris for the birth, and remaining there for the rest of her life. The household in Paris was supported financially by both fathers, but more so by Lowther, whose indirect funding remained important throughout Meryon's life; he made very little money from his art.

Starting at the age of 16, Meryon spent ten years as a naval cadet and finally officer, which included tours of the Mediterranean, and a four year voyage around the world, for most of it based in New Zealand, where the French then maintained an imperial toe-hold. On his return he fought and was wounded in a pro-government militia during political disturbances in 1848.

He had become seriously interested in art during his naval career, starting to take lessons. He gradually and reluctantly realized that his colour-blindness ruled out painting, and by 1848 settled on etching, then out of favour as a medium for fine art, though about to undergo a considerable revival. His best period lasted between 1850 and about 1856, before his increasing mental illness reduced his output. He spent fourteen months in an asylum in 1858 and 1859, then continued to work until 1866, when he re-entered the asylum for the final time.

Meryon's mother, Pierre-Narcisse Chaspoux, was a Parisian, born in 1791, who became a dancer in the Paris Opera in 1807 with the stage name of Narcisse Gentil. Her appearances there stop in 1814, and it was presumably about this time that she moved to London, where she became the mistress of Viscount Lowther, the future William Lowther, 2nd Earl of Lonsdale, then an unmarried Tory MP, junior minister, and friend of the Prince Regent. She had a daughter Frances (Fanny) by him in 1818. She was also friendly with Dr Charles Lewis Meryon, who had been a fellow boarder at 10 Warwick Street, Charing Cross, off Cockspur Street, around 1818. In 1821, when she was appearing as a dancer at the London Opera, Pierre-Narcisse became pregnant by Meryon, and returned to Paris with Fanny, Dr Meryon having left for Florence. Charles Meryon was born in the rue Rameau, round the corner from the then site of the Opera.

His father, Dr Meryon, had been working at St Thomas' Hospital at this time, but had spent the years 1810 to 1817 in the Middle East as (at that point unqualified) doctor to the aristocratic traveller Lady Hester Stanhope, who he was later to visit in Lebanon three times, seeing her for the last time in 1838. He continued to correspond with Pierre-Narcisse, and pay maintenance for his son, probably of 600 francs a year. The letters became increasingly uncomfortable, and she only found out about his marriage, which had been in 1823, by accident in 1831. Equally, Pierre-Narcisse was rather more generously supported by Lowther, who saw her and Fanny when he was in Paris, but she was keen to keep him unaware of the existence of Charles, although the two fathers were acquaintances in London. Both fathers apparently continued to know her under her stage name of "Narcisse Gentil".

Charles was registered at birth as a "Chaspoux", and eventually (in 1829) baptised in the Church of England by the chaplain of the British Embassy in Paris. In 1824 his father legally acknowledged paternity, and he was re-registered as "Meryon", although apparently usually known as "Gentil" as a child. For over a year after his birth he lived with friends of his mother some 20 kilometres outside Paris, visited not very frequently by his mother, sister and grandmother. He could walk at 9 months. He was moved back to Paris in January 1823, and from late 1825 Fanny was at a boarding school.

By late in 1826 he had entered the "Pension Savary", one of a number of small boarding schools in the Paris suburb of Passy; Camille Pissarro was a pupil some years later. He remained there until 1836, apart from a period with his father in 1834–35, and it seems to have been a generally happy time in his life. In 1834 his father, with his wife and children, was living in Marseille, where Charles joined them for an extended visit in May 1834; he had previously seen him on a few occasions. They spent the winter in north Italy, reaching as far as Florence; Charles was back in Paris by May 1835. Although in most respects he enjoyed the visit, and had happy memories of it, it appears that "the relationships within the family were not explained" to Charles, and perhaps other members, and this, the last time he would see his father, contributed to a growing resentment Charles felt towards him.