Constant
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
JEAN JOSEPH BENJA- MIN, a French portrait painter; born in Paris, June 10, 1845. He studied in the Ecole des Beaux Arts and under Cabanel. He has exhibited with growing distinction, at successive salons, from that of 186 1860, with his "Hamlet," his "Samson" in 1872, his "Scenes from Algiers" in 1873-1874 , his great historical painting of "Mohammed II. in 1453" own time. What Constable's pictures in the Exposition of 1878, and in 1885 did was to make a conspicuous rallying- a large Oriental subject, as melodramenry point for the new school. Mr. Henry Marquand presented two fine Constables to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Constable died in London, March 30, 1837. CONSTABLE OF BOURBON. BOURBON, CHARLES, DUKE OF. See or CONSTANCE (Ger. Constanz, Konstanz, ancient Constantia), city and lake-port of Germany, in the grandduchy of Baden, occupying the only territory belonging to Germany on the S. side of the Lake of Constance . The chief edifices are a cathedral, the Kaufhaus, in which the famous Council of Constance sat from 1414 to 1418 (and which deposed three antipopes, and condemned Huss and Jerome of Prague); an ancient palace; a grand ducal residence. One of its suburbs is connected atic as possible, with splendid rendering of the human figure and strong effects of color. His noble picture of "Justinian" is in the Metropolitan Art Museum, New York . He was decorated with the cross of the Legion of Honor in 1878. He died May 26, 1902.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's 1921 text is a printer's tangle of three separate articles — the painter Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant (1845–1902), John Constable, and the city of Constance. Benjamin-Constant's melodramatic Orientalism, praised here for "strong effects of color," fell almost entirely out of favour after his death, and he was only reassessed by a major retrospective, Marvels and Mirages of Orientalism, mounted in Montreal and Toulouse in 2014–15; his "Justinian" is no longer among the Metropolitan Museum's shown pictures. The Constance described as lying in "the grandduchy of Baden" was already out of date when printed: the grand duchy was abolished with the German monarchies in 1918, and since 1952 Konstanz has belonged to the state of Baden-Württemberg. The city itself, spared wartime bombing because of its position against the Swiss border, kept the medieval fabric the entry lists and gained a university in 1966.
Written for this edition, 2026.