Théophile Silvestre

Simon Clément Louis Théophile Silvestre (12 October 1823 – 20 June 1876) was a French art historian and critic. He is known for creating History of Living Artists, French and Foreign: Studies from Nature, a collection of contemporaneous biographical studies of European artists of the mid-19th century.

Early life and education Théophile Silvestre He was born on 12 October 1823 in Le Fossat, Ariège, France, to a bourgeois Catholic family. He was the son of the tax collector of Artigat.

He studied at the seminary in Pamiers. He was installed commissaire adjoint of Ariège on 5 April 1848, and resigned the next day.

Later life and death Silvestre died on 20 June 1876 in Paris at the home of Léon Gambetta, following a lunch marking their reconciliation.