1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ziem, Félix François George Philibert

ZIEM, FÉLIX FRANÇOIS GEORGE PHILIBERT (1821–), French painter, was born at Beaune (Côte d’Or) in 1821. Having studied at the art school of Dijon, where he carried off the grand prix for architecture, he went to Rome in 1839 and there continued his studies. The years from 1843 to 1848 were spent in travel in the south of France, Italy and the East, where he found the glowing sunlight and the rich colour peculiarly suited to his temperament. His reputation is, however, not based so much on his orientalist canvases as on his pictures of Venice, which are generally characterized by the intensity of the sunny glow on the red sails and golden-yellow buildings under a deep blue sky. Many of his Venetian pictures are purely imaginative, and their appeal is entirely due to their qualities of colour, his architectural drawing being frequently faulty and careless. After “Sunrise at Stamboul,” which Théodore Gautier called “the finest picture of modern times,” he received the Legion of Honour in 1857, and was made an officer in 1878. The majority of his paintings have gone to American private collections, but two of his finest pictures, “The Doge’s Palace in Venice” (1852), and a marine painting, are at the Luxembourg Museum, and a “View of Quai St Jean, Marseilles” at the Marseilles Gallery, whilst many others are to be found in the leading private collections of modern pictures in France, England and Germany. In collaboration with Luc de Vos he illustrated The Death of Paganini.

See Félix Ziem, by L. Roger-Milès (Librairie de l’art, Paris).