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Karl Benz

239 - François PILS (Steinakirchen am Forst (Austria), 1785 - Pari…
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Estimate €50 - €80
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Description
François PILS (Steinakirchen am Forst (Austria), 1785 - Paris, 1867) Portrait of Marshal Oudinot on campaign. Watercolour and grease pencil. Height: 18 cm. Width: 23 cm. On the same page are animated sketches including a group of soldiers in discussion and a cannon drawn by two horses. François Pils was born on 8 January 1785 in Steinakirchen am Forstest (Austria). In 1800, he joined the 51st regiment of the line, employed in the music as a Chinese hat. In 1804, he transferred to the 1st grenadier in Oudinot's division, who attached him to his person. Appointed General Oudinot's ordinance, he led the Grenadiers of the Empire, also known as "the infernal column". During Napoleon's military campaigns, Pils kept his diary for 10 years, at the heart of his regiment at Austerlitz, Friedland and Wagram, during the Russian campaign, the retreat and crossing of the Berezina, the Saxon and French campaigns, right up to the Treaty of Fontainebleau and Napoleon's abdication to the island of Elba. In his diary, Pils sketched events, some of which he would later use in drawings or paintings in the years 1820-1840. Gifted both as a writer and a draughtsman, he became, so to speak, Marshal Oudinot's official memorialist, and the illustrated diary he kept every day is a valuable record of the campaigns he led alongside his "hero". He remained in Oudinot's service until 1847, including as bailiff at the Grand Chancellery of the Legion of Honour. In 1815, he married Suzanne Soudais. At the time, they were valet and chambermaid to Marshal Oudinot, Duke of Reggio. Widowed in 1829, he married Philiberte Pachoux in Paris in 1831. He died on 6 December 1867 in Paris, at his home in the Passage Sainte-Marie, aged 82. He is buried with his three sons, the painters Isidore Alexandre Auguste Pils (1815-1875) and Edouard Pils (1823-1850) and the sculptor Ernest Pils (1825-1871). Louis Becq de Fouquière painted a portrait of François Pils in a book dedicated to his son, "Isidore-Alexandre-Auguste Pils, sa vie et ses œuvres": "He was something even more than a brave man; he was a painter of genius [...] During the fifteen years that he travelled the battlefields of Europe with the Marshal, he never stopped studying, drawing and reproducing from life the military scenes that unfolded before his eyes". Raoul de Cisternes brought Pils's diary out of oblivion by publishing it in 1895, illustrated with original drawings by Pils, entitled: Journal de marche du grenadier Pils (1804-1814), which recounts ten years of imperial campaigns at the heart of the elite corps, the Grenadiers de la réserve.
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About the sale FLORILEGE 2026
Auction location
Auction time 06/27/2026 at 2:00 PM
Lot description modified on 06/05/2026 at 12:25 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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