Garneray, Ambroise Louis

Ambroise Louis Garneray (February 19, 1783 - September 11, 1857) was a French navy man, privateer, painter, and writer. Garneray was born in the Paris Latin Quarter, the elder son of Jean-François Garneray (1755 - 1837), a royal painter and a pupil of Jacques-Louis David. Although initially trained as a painter, by his father, he joined the French Navy at 13. He sailed to the Indian Ocean, where he was involved in numerous battles and skirmishes, mainly with the British. For a time, he served on the privateer Tigre du Bengale. He was subsequently captured by the British and spent 8 years as a prisoner of war in England. Held in prison hulks off Portsmouth harbor, before being released on May 18, 1814. During his time as a prisoner he was allowed to continue as a painter, selling his works and improving his living conditions considerably with the profits. In 1811, he even composed an article on aquatints, preserved today at the Bibliothèque nationale de France. He never returned to the sea as a sailor, settling as a painter in Paris. Through official connections, he became the first Peintre de la Marine, likely a position created specifically for him. From 1831 to 1830, he made sketches of harbors throughout France. In 1833, Garneray became the director of the Museum of Rouen. Around the same time, he developed a fascination with aquatints and became a master of this printing genre, producing numerous works. From 1840 to 1848, Louis Garneray worked for the Royal Manufacture of Sèvres. During this decade, he also lost many of his official supporters as a painter and fell into financial duress. Nonetheless, in 1852, under Napoleon III, he was awarded the Legion of Honor by the Emperor himself. He died a few years later in 1857, curiously only a few months after his wife was mysteriously assassinated.