SCHHEFFER, ANR, an eminent French historical painter, was born at Dordrecht, in Holland, of French parents, in 1794 or 1795. He studied art under Baron Guérin at Paris, and practised historical and genre painting in that city with very great success. His progress has been, with few exceptions, steadily upwards from 1812, when he exhibited his "Abel and Tirza singing the praises of the Lord," down to his latest work in 1858. Among his most famous pictures are his Goethe's "Faust" and "Margaret," (1831-34); "Francesca da Rimini and her Lover meeting Dante and Virgil in Hell" (1835); "Christ the Comforter" (1836); Goethe's "Mignon," and a "Dead Christ" (1837-1845); "Dante and Beatrice" (1849), &c. He has likewise executed some excellent portraits, among which may be mentioned his La Fayette, Talleyrand, Beranger, Lamartine, Queen Amélie, and Charles Dickens.
Scheffer combines in his pictures many of the excellencies both of the German and French schools, and a few of the defects of both. In turn of thought and manner, for example, he is decidedly German, while in style and colour he is more obviously French, being often rich and beautiful, but wanting in softness and truth. Scheffer is, beyond doubt, a great painter, and many of his works leave but little to desire. He is looked up to, and with reason, by his countrymen as a master in devotional art; and he has fairly succeeded in breaking down that rigid classical conventionalism which so long had hedged in the French school of art. He is at times hurried and careless, though in his more elaborate pictures, he has put forth all the labour which time and genius could expend on them. He was made an officer of the Legion of Honour in 1825, and he was tutor to the family of Louis Philippe. He died on the 15th of June 1858.
Arnold Scheffer, who earned some distinction as a French political writer, and who died in 1853, was the younger brother of the painter; and Henri Scheffer, a younger brother still, and a painter of less note, still survives.