Henri Rouart

Henri Rouart was an engineer who made a fortune in refrigeration, exhibited alongside the Impressionists, and assembled one of the greatest private collections in France. He trained at the Ecole Polytechnique, was a schoolfriend of Degas, and met him again at the siege of Paris in 1870, where Degas served in an artillery battery under his command. He held patents in metallurgy and in the manufacture of ice, ran a substantial works, and painted seriously in his own right, showing in seven of the eight Impressionist exhibitions - a participant rather than a patron looking on. His house in the rue de Lisbonne held Corot, Millet, Daumier, Delacroix, El Greco, Goya and Degas, hung densely from floor to ceiling, and Degas, who was godfather to the household in practice if not in form, dined there every Friday for decades. He supported Degas financially by buying his work at moments when little else sold. His four sons grew up among the pictures; Ernest became Degas's only pupil and married Berthe Morisot's daughter Julie, and Eugene married Yvonne Lerolle. The collection was sold at auction over three days in December 1912, months after his death, for around four million francs, one of the largest art sales of the period, and its dispersal moved major works into museums across Europe and America. His own paintings hang in the Musee d'Orsay. He was one of the organisers of the first Impressionist exhibition of 1874 and helped underwrite the group's costs. Degas painted him more than once, including a portrait standing in front of his own factory. His brother Alexis was also a collector, principally of Japanese prints and eighteenth-century drawings. The auction catalogue of 1912 is still used by historians tracing the provenance of French nineteenth-century painting.

• Lived: 1833 CE – 1912 CE
• Nationality: French
• Roles: other