André GIROUX (Paris, 1801 - 1879) Waterfall in Civita Castellana Paper mounted on canvas 30,6 x 39,2 cm Our painting represents the gorges of Mount Soracte. We can compare it to another study painted by André Giroux, Painter in the forest. Civita Castellana, Washington, National Gallery of Art. The artist depicts a comrade sitting in front of an easel facing the stream, which is where our composition was painted. Son of Alphonse Giroux, a former student of David who had successfully reconverted to the art trade, André studied first with his father and then with the landscape painter and architect Jean-Thomas Thibault (1757-1826). He made his debut at the Salon in 1819. Xavier Leprince (1799-1826), a landscape and genre painter, was his friend. Two years later, he entered the École des Beaux-Arts and, in 1825, won the Prix de Rome for historical landscapes with La Chasse de Méléagre (Paris, École des Beaux-Arts). The following year he was in Rome. He joined the young landscape painters Caruelle d'Aligny (1798-1871), Corot (1796-1875), Edouard Bertin (1797-1871), Léon Fleury (1804-1867) and Raymond Brascassat (1804-1867), comrades with whom he painted from the ground. In his plein air studies, he expresses a remarkable sense of the transparency of the air and the clarity of the light. When he returned to Paris in 1830, he was inspired to paint the Italian views which won him a first class medal at the Salon the following year. Ten years later, he still uses them. Decorated with the Legion of Honor in 1837, he pursued an honorable career, exhibiting until 1874 landscapes that reflected his travels in France, in the Dauphiné, in Savoy, in Brittany or simply in Fontainebleau.