Jules Bastien-Lepage

1848 Damvillers - 1884 Paris

Jules Bastien-Lepage, a painter from Damvillers near Verdun, was raised in a family of affluent farmers, studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and then worked in the studio of Alexandre Cabanel. From the 1870s onwards he exhibited regularly at the Paris Salon; he was also awarded several medals and won the second prize in the Prix de Rome competition. A posthumous exhibition held in the École des Beaux-Arts immediately after his premature death provides a survey of the young painter and etcher’s oeuvre, which also includes a number of bronze sculptures.