Achille Peretti

Italian, 1857–1923

Peretti was a third-generation artist born in Alessandria, Italy. He studied in Rome, Milan, Naples, and Geneva, following most closely the manner of Raffaele Casnedi (1822–1892), his teacher at the Reale Academia di Belle Arte in Milan. In 1884, Peretti arrived in New Orleans, where his soft, decorative style of religious and genre painting appealed to a Catholic audience. Peretti painted murals in New Orleans for the Pickwick Club, The New Orleans Opera, and dozens of Catholic churches including St. Patrick's, St. Stephen Church, St. Theresa's, St. Vincent de Paul, Holy Name of Mary, and St. John the Baptist, and St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans. Other church commissions included Our Lady of the Gulf in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, and St. Colombkill in Chicago.

The range of Peretti's subject matter is astonishing—portraits, genre scenes, landscapes, still life. He also worked in an array of media—fresco, oil, watercolor, crayon, plaster, and bronze. Peretti had studios on Carondelet Street, Orleans Street, and, for his last twenty years, at 632 St. Peter Street.

Long-Billed Curlew or Corbigeau. Achille Peretti. Oil on canvas, 21 15/16 x 29 1/2 inches Signed, lower right. "A Perelli, N.O.” Louisiana State Museum 12480.

Long-Billed Curlew or Corbigeau
Achille Peretti
Oil on canvas, 21 15/16 x 29 1/2 in. (55.7 x 74.9 cm), signed lower right. "A Perelli, N.O."
Louisiana State Museum 12480

Study of a Man's Head from the Back
Achille Peretti, 1892
Oil on canvas, 29 1/2 x 24 inches, signed, lower left, "A Peretti/1892"
Louisiana State Museum 00587

Thomy LaFon
Achille Peretti, 1894
Plaster and paint, 28 x 15 x 13 ½ inches
Louisiana State Museum 00453

LaFon (1810–1893) was a free man of color born in New Orleans. He made a fortune investing in real estate, and was a renowned philanthropist, supporting the abolition of slavery, integration, hospitals and ambulance service, and equal educational opportunities for all children.

Grace King states that the bust was commissioned by the Louisiana Legislature. This was one of the earliest museum accessions—dating to about 1907. It was purchased from the art dealer Marshall Marcel.

John James Audubon
Achille Peretti, 1892
Plaster and paint, 31 x 25 x 19 inches, signed, lower left, "A Peretti/1892"
Louisiana State Museum 08459.001-.2

By the end of the nineteenth century, Louisiana claimed Audubon for his years in the early 1820s working on Birds of America. Audubon also allowed some to believe that he was born on a plantation in the colony. Audubon Park in New Orleans was created in 1890. The first allocation of money for landscaping by the city came in 1892.

Governor Francis Tillou Nicholls
Achille Peretti
Plaster and paint, 21 x 13 ½ x 9 inches, signed lower right, "A Peretti, N.O."
Gift of Henry Stern, Louisiana State Museum 12480

Nicholls (1834–1912) was born in Donaldsonville, Louisiana, and attended West Point. He served during the third Seminole War in Florida. In 1861, he enlisted in the Confederate Army and lost his left arm at the First Battle of Bull Run—the first major engagement during the Civil War.

A staunch Democrat and one of the so-called "Redeemers" following Reconstruction, Nicholls served as governor of Louisiana twice—from 1876 to 1880 and again from 1888 to 1892. After this, he became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in Louisiana. Nicholls State University was named in his honor.

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Hilary Breton Cenas. Attributed to Jacques Guillaume Lucien Amans, c. 1850. Oil on canvas, 27 x 22 inches. Loan of Mrs. Rene T. Beauregard. Louisiana State Museum 07052

Jacques Guilliaume Lucien Amans

French, 1801–1888