Carolus-Duran

1837-1917

Carolus-Duran painted the fashionable elite of Third Republic Paris with a style and assurance that made him one of the most sought-after portraitists of his age. Born in Lille in 1837, the son of a hotel owner, he studied in Paris from 1853 and exhibited first at the Salon in 1859. A scholarship allowed him to travel in Italy and Spain from 1862 to 1866, where he studied the old masters—especially Velázquez—and moved beyond his early interest in Realism. Returning to France, he won a gold medal at the Salon and became celebrated above all as a portrait painter. His studio on the Boulevard du Montparnasse became one of Paris's principal teaching ateliers, where he trained John Singer Sargent and many other artists who would shape modern art. He was made Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour and served as director of the French Academy in Rome from 1905 until his death in 1917.