Sunflowers

Sicard studied flower design at the École des Beaux-Arts, Lyon, under Augustin Alexandre Thierriat (1789-1870), and was probably also taught by Antoine Berjon (1754-1843), the most eminent of all Lyonnais flower painters. Sicard exhibited his flowerpieces, mostly in pastel, but sometimes in oil, at the Lyon Salon from 1837 and at the Paris Salon from 1857 to 1870. His work was extremely popular, and was collected by people such as his fellow artist, Claude Anthelme Honoré Trimolet (1798-1866), who bequeathed his entire collection to the Musée de Beaux-Arts, Dijon (see, for example, Sicard's still life of a bouquet of flowers in Dijon; E. Hardouin-Gugier and E. Grafe, French Flower Painters of the 19th Century, 1989, pp. 360-1, illustrated).

Sicard was a keen art critic and disapproved of impressionistic flower painting, calling Impressionism 'the school of slovenly painting' (E. Hardouin-Fugier and E. Grafe, The Lyon School of Flower Painting, 1978, p. 78).