Albin Mesnel Biography
Fish Illustrations of Albin Mesnel
BORN: 1830, Manufacture des Gobelins
DIED: 1875
All the contributors to the journal [La Nature] are dedicated to one joint literary effort; whether as writers or artists, we form, in a way, a sort of scientific family. We also find it our duty to express our common sorrow when one of us succumbs to death in the middle of their work, in their path toward their potential. A sudden death has deprived us, the 31 December 1875, of one of our most capable illustrators of natural history, Albin Mesnel, and we will recount with a few words his most accomplished career. This career is evidence that it is always by regular and hard work that the artist, just as the writer, arrives at a sort of perfection, a continual progression dictated by nature, and that the impatient and overconfident will never attain.
Albin Mesnel was born in 1830, at the Manufacture des Gobelins, where his father was a tapestry artist. During his childhood, he studied drawing under the direction of MM. Mulard and Abel Lucas, professors at the manufacturer. In 1845, he studied to become an illustrator of nature in M. Delahaye’s studio, he himself having been an artist at the Manufacture des Gobelins. Mesnel retained that post for about ten years, contributing to the engravings found in the Encyclopédie of Chenu and l’Histoire des Picidés by M. Malherbe which he continued to contribute to even after his departure from the studio.
In his independent ventures, he contributed to many publications including Le Monde de la mer by Moquin-Tandon, l’Univers by Pouchet, works by M. L. Figuier on insects, fish, reptiles, birds, mammals, etc., the Animaux de la France by M. Rendu, the Dictionnaire des pêches by M. de La Blanchère.
At the time of his death, he was working on a project about fish with M. Moreau as well as on the Faune de Madagascar by M. Grandidier. A large number of illustrated books, the Magasin pittoresque, the journal La Nature, many Hachette publications, the Tour du Monde, etc. contain his work.
When he vacationed, he frequently chose to be by the sea and was most fond of the Normandy coast; especially Havre, Dieppe, Beuzeval, and Veules.
He loved animals, knew how to observe them and how to represent their individual personalities in his work. His sketches attempted, in a picturesque way, to reproduce their moods as they went about life hunting, loving and combating.