biography of Adolphe D. RINCK (1802-1895)

Birth place: France

Addresses: New Orleans (active between 1840-72, with frequent travel)

Profession: Portrait and miniature painter, teacher

Studied: Royal Acad., Berlin; Paul Delaroche, Paris (1835-40)

Exhibited: Salon, Paris, 1835-40; lecture hall, Monsieur Bravo's in New Orleans, 1846; Brooklyn AA, 1873

Work: NYHS (miniature portrait of John Woodhouse Audubon, c.1845)

Comments: Came to New Orleans in 1840 and worked winters there until 1846 at which time he seems to have made that city his permanent residence. Gave painting and drawing lessons from 1846 while still painting portraits and traveling (Brazil in 1851). An advocate of scientific agriculture, he wrote a pamphlet on the subject, proposed a school devoted to its teaching, and bought a farm in Algiers, LA, in 1859. His whereabouts from 1861 and 1869 are unknown; however, he once again advertised his services as portraitist in New Orleans in 1871. One portrait survives from 1872. A number of portraits have been found in Norwich, CT, suggesting this as one of the places he traveled over the years.

Sources: G&W; Delgado-WPA cites Bee, Dec. 9, 1840, Jan. 8, 1842, Jan. 3, 1843, March 30, 1858, Feb. 17, 1871, Picayune, Jan. 9, 1851, and New Orleans CD 1841-42, 1846; cf. Seebold, Old Louisiana Plantation Homes and Family Trees, I, 23. More recently, see Encyclopaedia of New Orleans Artists; Gerdts, Art Across America, vol. 2: 95.