Adolphe Lalauze
Adolphe Lalauze (8 October 1838 – 18 October 1906) was a prolific French etcher who made the illustrations for many books. He won various awards and was made a knight of the Legion of Honour.
Adolphe Lalauze

Adolphe Lalauze · Wellcome Collection, London · Wellcome Collection · Public Domain Mark
- Name
- Adolphe Lalauze
- Born
- 8 October 1838
- Birthplace
- Rive-de-Gier, Loire, France
- Died
- 18 October 1906
- Place of death
- Milly-la-Forêt, Essonne, France
- Occupation
- Engraver
- Known for
- Book illustrations
- Nationality
- France
- Fields
- portrait
- Education
- Institut supérieur des arts de Toulouse
- Languages
- French
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Documentary summary
Adolphe Lalauze (8 October 1838 – 18 October 1906) was a prolific French etcher who made the illustrations for many books. He won various awards and was made a knight of the Legion of Honour.
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Note VALÉORINE
Adolphe Lalauze (1838–1906) was a draftsperson, etcher and graphic artist, among other activities, of French nationality. The draftsperson was born in Rive-de-Gier and died in Milly-la-Forêt.
Adolphe Lalauze was educated at Institut supérieur des arts de Toulouse. The draftsperson worked in Paris.
The work spans portrait. Languages used include French. Works are held at Minneapolis Institute of Art, Museo del Prado and National Museum of Fine Arts, Argentina, among others.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 01 October 2026
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Documentary evidence
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Authority files
wikidata · Q2824851 · wikipedia · Adolphe Lalauze
In this article
Biography
Biography
Adolphe Lalauze studied at Institut supérieur des arts de Toulouse. The recorded working language is French. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are portrait. Places of work recorded in the authority are Paris. Work by Adolphe Lalauze is recorded in the collections of Minneapolis Institute of Art, Museo del Prado, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, National Museum of Fine Arts, Argentina and Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Guillaume-Louis Figuier. Etching by A. Lalauze., by Adolphe Lalauze
Adolphe Lalauze · Wellcome Collection, London · Wellcome Collection

Léon Labbé. Etching by A. de Lalauze, 1891., 1891, by Adolphe Lalauze
Adolphe Lalauze · Wellcome Collection, London · Wellcome Collection
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Adolphe Lalauze • Born — 8 October 1838 • Birthplace — Rive-de-Gier, Loire, France • Died — 18 October 1906 • Place of death — Milly-la-Forêt, Essonne, France • Occupation — Engraver • Known for — Book illustrations
Life
Life
• Illustration — Lavandieres, Antibes (Washerwomen, Antibes) 1869 Adolphe Lalauze was born in Rive-de-Gier, Loire, on 8 October 1838. His first job was a Contrôleur de l'Enregistrement. Lalauze worked in this civil service job in Toulouse for some time, then enrolled at the Toulouse École des Beaux-arts. He moved to Paris, where he became a student of Léon Gaucherel. Encouraged by Gaucherel, he took up etching, and first exhibited at the Salon in 1872. At the Salon of 1876 he exhibited twenty-one etchings. These included a series of nine called Le Petit Monde (The Small World) that depicted childhood scenes using his children as models, which won a 3rd class medal. He won a 2nd class medal at the Salon of 1878 for twelve plates illustrating the Histoires ou contes du temps passé by Charles Perrault. Lalauze illustrated many books. He drew the Frontispiece for Le Bric-à-brac de l'amour (1879) published by Octave Uzanne. This book used revolutionary new photo-mechanical reproduction techniques. He illustrated the Peter Anthony Motteux translation of Don Quixote, first published in 1879. Lalauze made 21 etchings for the 1881 edition of Galland's translation of the Arabian Nights, and these were reproduced in several other editions. He was one of the illustrators of Damase Jouaust's 1882 Petite Bibliothėque artistique (Small Art Library), along with Pierre Edmond Alexandre Hédouin and Émile Boilvin. He created illustrations for Walter Scott's Waverley Novels published in Boston in 1893–94. In 1898 his illustrations in the pure fin de siècle style appeared in Sophie Arnould, actress and wit by Robert B. Douglas. Adolphe Lalauze was a member of the Société des Artistes Français. He died in Milly-la-Forêt, Essonne in 1906. His son, Alphonse Lalauze, was also an artist.
Work
Work
• Illustration — La Leçon de Dessin (The Drawing Lesson) 1880 Lalauze was known for etchings that depicted children, using his own children as models. He also made etchings that interpreted work by such artists as Charles Bargue, Pieter Codde, Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps, Juan Antonio Gonzalez, Charles Green, Antoine-Jean Gros, Jean-Baptiste Huet, Pierre-Paul Prud'hon, David Teniers, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, and Diego Velázquez. Lalauze made color prints by superimposing etched boards. Some of his larger plates included "Love Story" after Frank Dicksee, "A Kiss from the Sea" after Hamilton Macallum and "The Entry of Charles V into Antwerp" after Hans Makart. His best work included "The Halt" after Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, etched for the magazine L'Art, and "Portrait of Madame Pompadour" after Maurice Quentin de La Tour, published by the Société des Artistes Français. During his lifetime he was called "one of the most skillful original etchers of the modern French school." An 1889 book described him as an etcher with extreme facility who composed elegant vignettes and frontispieces. Later, Claude Roger-Marx criticized him for having fallen from interpretive drawing into a "laborious work of illustration" and of multiplying small compositions and vignettes.
Gallery
Gallery
• Illustration — Arabian Nights illustration • Illustration — Arabian Nights illustration • Illustration — Illustration from the Confessions du comte de *** by Charles Pinot Duclos • Illustration — Pierre-Charles-Henri Fauvel 1892 • Illustration — French explorer Prince Henri of Orléans (1867–1901) c. 1897 • Illustration — French poet José-Maria de Heredia (1842–1905) c. 1897 • Illustration — French sculptor Emmanuel Frémiet (1824–1910) c. 1897
Identity
Identity
Adolphe Lalauze is recorded as etcher, illustrator, painter, draftsperson and watercolorist.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 2 entries
1838
Adolphe Lalauze was born in 1838 at Rive-de-Gier.
1906
Adolphe Lalauze died in 1906 at Milly-la-Forêt.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Rive-de-Gier.
Birth place
Milly-la-Forêt.
Death place
Where the work is held
Holdings and surviving copies
Where material relating to Adolphe Lalauze is held.
Awards and distinctions
• 1876 Salon Medal 3rd class • 1878 Salon Medal 2nd class • 1889 Bronze Medal at the Exposition Universelle • 1895 Knight of the Legion of Honor, • 1900 Gold Medal at the Exposition Universelle
Literature
Literature
Literature
Lalauze, Adolphe, Benezit Dictionary of Artists, 2011
Scholarly footprint
Literature
Scholarly footprint
A count of publications is evidence of attention, not of standing, and is given here only as a measure.
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
Bibliography printed in the source article · 9
- Adolphe Lalauze. Idbury Prints.
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References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
reference work
Wikidata, structured authority record Q2824851: Adolphe LalauzeWikimedia Foundation
Secondary witnessreference work
Secondary witness
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 16 August 2026.
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