Robaut, Alfred

Alfred Robaut was born in Douai on May 20, 1830. He pursued careers as a draftsman, engraver, and painter, while also building a collection of artworks.

In 1852, at age twenty-two, Robaut married Elisa Juliette Dutilleux, the eldest daughter of Constant Dutilleux, a painter and intimate friend of both Eugène Delacroix and Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot.

This marriage connected Robaut directly to the artistic circles surrounding two of the nineteenth century's most important French painters. Through his father-in-law, Robaut developed a close friendship with Corot, becoming particularly intimate with the master during Corot's final years.

Robaut's relationship with Corot combined genuine friendship with scholarly interest. He had great admiration for both Corot and Delacroix, and this personal connection would prove crucial for his later cataloguing work.

When Corot died in 1875, Robaut's intimate knowledge of the artist's work led to his appointment to write the catalogue for Corot's studio sale on May 26, 1875. This initial cataloguing work marked the beginning of Robaut's systematic documentation of Corot's oeuvre.

In 1885, Robaut published 'L'Œuvre complet de E. Delacroix' (Paris), the first catalogue of Eugène Delacroix's works. This project demonstrated Robaut's commitment to systematic artist documentation and established his methodology.

For the remaining twenty years of his life, Robaut devoted himself to his magnum opus: a comprehensive catalogue raisonné of Corot's works. This monumental project required systematic research, documentation, and verification of thousands of paintings.

In 1905, Robaut published 'L'Œuvre de Corot. Catalogue raisonné et illustré, précédé de l'histoire de Corot et de ses oeuvres par Et. Moreau-Nélaton' (Paris, 5 volumes). The catalogue listed upwards of 2,500 objects attributed to Corot.

This publication represented the most comprehensive systematic documentation of a single artist's oeuvre attempted to that date. Robaut's meticulous methodology—combining connoisseurship, provenance research, and systematic organization—established standards that influenced all subsequent catalogue raisonné projects.

The work was published in collaboration with Etienne Moreau-Nélaton, who contributed the biographical history of Corot, while Robaut provided the systematic catalogue of works.

Alfred Robaut died in Fontenay-sous-Bois on April 8, 1909, at age seventy-eight, having transformed art historical scholarship through his pioneering work in systematic artist documentation.