ALPHONSE CHAIGNON (Paris, 1828-1898). "Architectural Fantasies", 1882. Pair of paintings on porcelain. Signed and dated on one side. Measurements: 50 cm. diameter each; 69 x 69 cm.(frames). French painter and decorator, author of "architectural fantasies" very celebrated in his time, of which we show two good examples. Alphonse Chaignon trained with Jean-Hilaire Belloc (1786-1866), a history painter and talented portraitist who, as director of the Paris School of Drawing, had a notable influence on many of his pupils (Fantin-Latour, Whisler, Lhermitte, Bracquemond, Carlus-Duran). He would also have been - according to the press which praises his qualities as an "archaeological painter" - a pupil of Viollet-le-Duc (1814-1879) or, more probably, one of his ardent disciples in view of his artistic career. A. Chaignon was present from 1865 at the Salon des Artistes Françaises, with a "View of Quimperlé" (1868, oil painting, no. 464). Chaignon became known as a "decorative artist painter": he produced, between 1867 and 1878, for the church Sainte-Madelaine de Montargis (Loiret) and the chapel Saint-Vincent de Paul of the church Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Belleville in the Buttes-Chaumont, ornamental frescoes and decorative paintings or even "vast panels painted in matt oil on canvas" (Sainte-Geneviève) destined for the church of Saint-Pierre -de- Montmartre in Paris. These compositions, celebrated for the delicacy of the drawing and the combination of tones, won the artist the Bronze Medal in 1874 and 1876. Alphonse Chaignon was to share this distinction with one of the most talented decorative painters of the time, Albert Lenoir (1801-1892). As part of the Concours de la Ville de Paris, two projects for mural frescoes for the Salle des Mariages in the town hall are particularly noteworthy: his interesting restitutions of Old Paris imagined with animated landscape frescoes, The Court of Miracles and The Montmartre Gate in the 16th century.