Jean-Louis DEMARNE and Manufacture DIHL (Brussels, 1752 - Paris, 1829) Landing on a canal and Departure of a family Pair of compositions painted on thick glass plates One signed 'de Marne' on the wall and 'MH / de Dihl' on the box at bottom right and the other signed 'Dihl ...' above the door at left. Scene of landing on a canal and Scene of a family's departure, reverse-glass paintings, signed, by J.-L. Demarne and DIHL Manufacture 13.38 x 19.29 in. 34 x 49 cm Provenance: Private collection, Brussels Bibliography: related : Régine de Plinval de Guillebon, "Peintures sur verre de la manufacture de porcelaine de Dihl à Paris (1806-1809)", Sèvres. Revue de la Société des Amis au musée national de la Céramique, 1997, 6, p. 52-54 The discovery of these two paintings on glass aroused our astonishment, then our curiosity, and finally our fascination. Situated between the transparent panoramas of Carmontelle and the first inventions of Daguerre, these paintings on glass play with light in the same way that a revolution that would revolutionise the world would do much later: cinema. The illustration, illuminated from behind or more conventionally from the front, gives us an idea of what Christophe Dihl (1751-1830) wanted to create when he asked Jean-Louis Demarne to paint on frosted glass plates (also called mirrors at the time). Régine de Plinval de Guillebon (cf. opus cited above) has dated this extremely rare work perfectly, in an extremely short space of time: between 1806 and 1809. Christophe Dihl, a native of the Palatinate, founded his workshop in Paris in 1781 in partnership with Guérhard and his wife. The factory quickly gained a reputation for the quality of its porcelain, and during the Revolution benefited from the arrival of qualified personnel thanks to the closure of the Niderviller factory, whose owner, General de Custine, was guillotined in August 1793. Under the Empire, the factory was still renowned for its porcelain, but visitors were also attracted by a Parisian curiosity: the glass painting gallery that Dihl installed in his headquarters in the former Hôtel Bergeret. According to the Nouveau Pariseum (1810), this gallery offered "paintings on glass of astonishing perfection and extraordinary size: each crosspiece is a picture of a single pane of glass". According to Dihl, who tried to sell the paintings on glass in this gallery for 200,000 francs1: "they are paintings without canvases, since they illuminate the flat and present objects as if the windows were not closed". The two large plates2 acquired by Sèvres in 1996, both signed by Demarne and Dihl, are dated 1806 and 1809 and are comparable in every way to ours. Demarne had already produced paintings on porcelain for Dihl before 1806 and also worked for the Sèvres manufactory between 1809 and 1813. 1 - Arch.Nat., F12 1966 R, 14 pluviose an IV. 2 - Collection du Bourg de Bozas; Their sale; Paris, Hôtel George V, Tajan, 9 December 1996, no. 107, pre-empted by the Musée de la Céramique de Sèvres. Jean-Louis DEMARNE and Manufacture DIHL (Brussels, 1752 - Paris, 1829) 34 x 49 cm