The pharmacist, painter and engraver Adrien Recouvreur and the chemistry of painting

Adrian Recouvreur was born in Commercy, in the department of Meuse, on January 27, 1858. He was a student in pharmacy in Nancy and Reims where he obtained his diploma in 1885. He bought then a pharmacy in his native town. During his student years, he studied also painting and drawing in Commercy and Nancy. It seems also that he belonged to the Ecole de Nancy and he coasted some of the founders of this society. In 1896 or 1897, he renounced to pharmaceutical activity to devote all his time to painting, engraving and art criticism. He left then Lorraine to settle himself in Angers where he became soon the preserver of Musee Turpin de Criosse. He died in this town on March 18, 1944, after having handed down to posterity a great number of art works to his native and his reception towns. His knowledges in chemistry gave him the idea to be useful to his artist friends by realizing studies and experiments on colours whose alterability seemed to him alarming for the future of many art works. Some books gather the results of his work in this field.