Alexandre Cabanel

He was Napoleon III's preferred painter and, with Gérôme and Meissonier, was one of "the three most successful artists of the Second Empire."

Alexandre Cabanel studied at Beaux-Arts de Paris and French Academy in Rome. Training under François-Édouard Picot and Charles Matet is recorded. François Lafon, Pierre Auguste Cot and Raphaël Collin are recorded as having studied under Alexandre Cabanel. The recorded working language is French. The field of work recorded is painting. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are history, nude, portrait and genre. Places of work recorded in the authority are Paris. Employment is recorded with Beaux-Arts de Paris. Works named in the authority record are The Birth of Venus and Cleopatra Testing Poisons on Condemned Prisoners. Work by Alexandre Cabanel is recorded in the collections of Art Institute of Chicago, Nationalmuseum, Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille, Metropolitan Museum of Art and Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp. Distinctions recorded are Commander of the Legion of Honour, Prix de Rome and Order of Saint Michael.

• Name — Alexandre Cabanel • Born — 28 September 1823 • Birthplace — Montpellier, France • Died — 23 January 1889 • Place of death — Paris, France • Known for — Painting • Training — François-Édouard Picot • Movement — Academicism • Notable Works — Birth of Venus The Fallen Angel • Awards — Prix de Rome

Cabanel was the son of a modest carpenter, and he began his apprenticeship at the Montpellier School of Fine Arts in the class of Charles Matet, curator of the Musée Fabre. Equipped with a scholarship, he moved to Paris in 1839. Cabanel entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris at the age of seventeen, in 1840, where he studied with François-Édouard Picot. After two failures, with the paintings Cincinnatus receiving the ambassadors of Rome, in 1843, and Christ in the Garden of Olives, in 1844, he won the Prix de Rome scholarship, in 1845 at the age of 22. He would be a resident of the Villa Medici until 1850. Cabanel was both a history painter and a genre painter, and he evolved over the years towards romantic themes, like Albaydé (1848), inspired by Les Orientales, by Victor Hugo (1829). He received the insignia of knight of the Legion of Honor, in 1855. Also in 1855, he married Marie-Clémentine Legrand, with whom he had three children. Legrand and two of the children died in 1867. He remarried in 1869, but his second wife also died just four years later. He gained more recognition with The Birth of Venus, exhibited at the Salon of 1863, and which was immediately purchased by Napoleon III for his personal collection. The acclaimed painting entered the Luxembourg Museum, in 1881, and is now held at the Musée d'Orsay, in Paris. He signed a contract with the Goupil house for the marketing of engraved reproductions of this painting. There is a smaller replica, painted in 1875 for a banker, John Wolf, now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York City. It was offered to the museum by Wolf in 1893. The classical composition embodies ideals of Academic art: a mythological subject, graceful modeling, silky brushwork, and perfected forms. This style was perennially popular with collectors, even as when it was challenged by artists seeking a more realistic approach, such as Gustave Courbet. He was also criticized by writers and critics like Émile Zola and Joris-Karl Huysmans, who were more open to the modern artistic tendencies.

• Illustration — The Birth of Venus (1863) • The Fallen Angel (L'ange déchu, 1847), Musée Fabre, Montpellier • Aglaé and Boniface (Aglaé et Boniface, 1857), The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio US • The Birth of Venus (La naissance de Vénus, 1863), Musée d'Orsay, Paris • Napoleon III (1865), Musée national du château de Compiègne, Écouen, France • The Death of Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta (La mort de Francesca de Rimini et de Paolo Malatesta, 1870), Musée d'Orsay, Paris • Portrait de la comtesse de Keller (1873), Musée d'Orsay, Paris • Thamar (1875) • Phèdre (1880), Musée Fabre, Montpellier • Ruth glanant dans les champs de Booz (1886), Musée Garinet, Châlons-en-Champagne • Portrait de Mary Victoria Leiter (1887), Kedleston Hall, England • Cleopatra Testing Poisons on Condemned Prisoners (Cléopâtre essayant des poisons sur des condamnés à mort, 1887), Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp • Portrait of Napoleon III (Cabanel)

• Illustration — The Fallen Angel (1847) • Illustration — Albaydé (1848) • Illustration — The Death of Moses (1850) • Illustration — The Glorification of Saint Louis (1853) • Illustration — Nymph and Satyr (1860) • Illustration — Portrait of Napoleon III (c. 1865) • Illustration — The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Paradise (1867) • Illustration — The Death of Francesca of Rimini and Paolo Malatesta (1870) • Illustration — Portrait of Cornelia Lyman Warren (1871) • Illustration — Portrait of Countess Elizabeth Vorontsova-Dashkova (1873) • Illustration — Pandora (1873), The Walters Art Museum • Illustration — Echo (1874) • Illustration — Thamar (1875) • Illustration — Harmonie (1877) • Illustration — The daughter of Jephthah (1879) • Illustration — Phaedra (1880) • Illustration — Ophelia (1883) • Illustration — Cleopatra Testing Poisons on Condemned Prisoners (1887) • Illustration — The Mocking of Christ (1845) • Illustration — Le Titan (1884)