Guillaume Dombay ( French: Guillaume Dombet ; known from documents from 1414 to 1461 ) - French artist and stained glass artist .
| Dombay Guillaume | |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | |
| Place of Birth | France |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | |
| Citizenship |  France |
Biography
Guillaume Dombay was most likely born in Cuséry , Burgundy, but worked mainly in the Provencal cities of Avignon , Arles , and Aix-en-Provence .
In addition to the stained glass window in the church of Saint Sauveur, not a single accurately established work of this artist has been preserved.
The first archival document, which mentions the name Dombay, dates from 1414, and reports that Guillaume was entrusted with the execution of stained glass for the papal palace in Avignon. From the documents it is known that Guillaume Dombay had a successful workshop in which his three sons worked - Aubrey, Jean and Jacques, as well as his son-in-law - an artist from Tourne Arnole de Katz (known by documents in 1430-1434), who married his daughter Guillaume - Peyronnett, and in 1430 signed a contract with his workshop for three years.
The Dombe workshop received the most prestigious orders, it performed the production and installation of stained glass in the papal palace in Avignon (1414), in the Cathedral of Aix (1415, 1444, 1449), in the synagogue of Aix (1418), in the Franciscan church of Marseille ( 1425), in the church of St. Martha in Tarascon (1432) and in the chapel of St. Peter of Luxembourg in Avignon (1448). Modern scholars believe that of the five stained-glass windows created by Dombe, the chapel of St. Miter in the Cathedral of Saint Sauveur in Aix-en-Provence, only images of St. Miter, St. Blaise and the holy bishop. They show the influence of both Burgundy and Provencal and Dutch art.
Along with the stained-glass windows, the Dombe workshop painted many altars. From the documents it is known that Dombe received orders for the manufacture of altars for the Cathedral in Aix (1415), for the Franciscan church in Aix (1420), for the church of Notre Dame du Salu (1423), for the cordelier monastery in Tarascon (1429), for the prior Estesarga (1447) and for the temple in Caderuss. Guillaume Dombay did not shy from execution and much more modest orders: painting of coats of arms or execution of the processions of the Corpus Christi in Avignon. However, not one of Dombe’s famous easel works has survived.
The name of Guillaume Dombe is associated with a large altar made for the same cathedral in 1443-1445 - the famous "Annunciation from Aix." The French researcher Jean Boyer was the first to suggest that the so-called Master of the Annunciation from Aix is Guillaume Dombay, believing that his workshop in the 1440s was connected with the Cathedral of Saint Sauveur by a variety of orders. The altar "Annunciation" was commissioned by a rich clothmaker from Aix-en-Provence Pierre Corpichi in his will dated December 9, 1442. In 1445, he made a new testament, from the text of which it can be understood that by that time the altar was ready. A number of researchers see the similarity of the artistic techniques of the Annunciation altar and the stained-glass windows in the church of Saint Sauveur, but the problem of the Annunciation Master from Aix still remains unresolved, and several different artists of that era, primarily Barthelemy d'Eik, claim the authorship of this work.
One of the greatest experts in French medieval painting, Charles Sterling, suggested that the back side of the flames of the Annunciation of Aix was painted by Guillaume's son, Aubrey Dombay. He attributed the famous “Pieta from Tarascon” to the hand of another Guillaume's dream - Jacques Dombay, who appears in Provencal archival documents from 1451 to 1461.
On December 4, 1458, an old, sick artist made a will, in which he ordered that he be buried in the cemetery of Notre Dame de Principe in Avignon. From a document from 1461 it follows that by this time Guillaume was no longer alive. Guillaume Dombe belongs to the largest French artists of the first half of the 15th century, but the works he created were very unlucky, and the researchers of his work still have more questions than answers.
Literature
- J. Boyer, 'Le Maitre d'Aix enfin identifie', Conn. A., LXXII (1958) pp. 39-43
- C. Sterling, 'La Pieta de Tarascon et les peintres Dombet', Rev. Louvre, XVI / 1 (1966) pp. 13-26
- Michelle Laclotte / Dominique Thiebaut. L'ecol d'Avignon. Flammarion. Paris 1983, pp. 74, 223-224, 233-234.
- Joëlle Guidini-Raybaud. Pictor et veyrerius: le vitrail en Provence occidentale, XIIe-XVIIe siècles. Presses de l'Universite de Paris-Sorbonne. 2003.
- C. Roux, 'Deux vitraux inedits du peintre et verrier Guillaume Dombet a Tarascon', Provence Hist., LV / 222 (2004) pp. 501-512