(b Le Locle, Switzerland, 30–31 July 1819; d Versailles, 5 March 1880). Swiss painter and engraver. He was the son of the engraver Charles-Samuel Girardet (1780–1863) and the brother of the painters and engravers Karl Girardet (1813–71) and Paul Girardet (1821–93). At an early age he joined his brother Karl in Paris, studying painting with him and attending the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. He had practised the techniques of wood-engraving from the age of nine and concentrated increasingly on the graphic arts after 1835. In 1836 he started work as a draughtsman for Jacques-Dominique-Charles Gavard’s Les Galeries historiques de Versailles (Paris, 1838–49), a project that continued for the next 12 years. He made his début at the Salon in 1839 with the Communal Bath (1839; Neuchâtel, Mus. A. & Hist.), and he continued to submit works until 1876. These included such genre paintings as the Paternal Blessing (1842; Neuchâtel, Mus. A. & Hist.) and a number of engravings and aquatints after such artists as Paul Delaroche, Horace Vernet and Jean-Léon Gérôme. Several of these engravings were published by the firm of ADOLPHE GOUPIL. In 1844 Girardet and his brother Karl were commissioned by the Musées Nationaux de Versailles to travel to Egypt to paint a historical scene from the Crusades. Girardet responded with the Capture of Jaffa (1844; Versailles, Château). He also travelled to England and frequently visited Switzerland, though most of his time was spent in France. In 1857 he finally settled in Paris and devoted himself largely to copperplate-engraving.

• Girardet, Edouard(-Henri)
  • Cogniet, Léon