Paul Gervais
Paul-Jean-Louis Gervais (7 September 1859 – 11 March 1944) was a French painter who was fashionable around the end of the 19th century. He is known for his sensuous paintings of nude women.
Also recorded as Paul-Jean-Louis Gervais · Paul Jean Gervais · Paul Jean Louis Gervais
Paul Gervais

Didier Descouens · Public domain
- Name
- Paul-Jean-Louis Gervais
- Born
- 7 September 1859
- Birthplace
- Toulouse, France
- Died
- 11 March 1944
- Place of death
- Paris, France
- Occupation
- Painter
- Nationality
- France
- Fields
- portrait
- Education
- Institut supérieur des arts de Toulouse
- Known for
- The Madness of Titania
- Honours
- Officer of the Legion of Honour
- Languages
- French
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
VALÉORINE documentary reading
Documentary summary
Paul-Jean-Louis Gervais (7 September 1859 – 11 March 1944) was a French painter who was fashionable around the end of the 19th century. He is known for his sensuous paintings of nude women.
Admitted source layer · organised and presented by VALÉORINE
Reference Check
Propose documentary evidence for Paul Gervais. A contribution is never written directly as fact: identity, source, rights and evidence gates still decide.
Sign in to contribute
World of VALÉORINE
Documentary connections
Only confirmed graph relationships appear here. Images are shown only when their identity and reuse rights both pass the documentary gate.
Documentary evidence
Documentary basis
Authority files
gnd · 117597864 · wikidata · Q3371523
In this article
Biography
Biography
Paul Gervais studied at Institut supérieur des arts de Toulouse. The recorded working language is French. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are portrait. Works named in the authority record are The Madness of Titania. Work by Paul Gervais is recorded in the collections of National Museum of Visual Arts, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la ville de Paris, Musée des Augustins, musée Petiet de Limoux and Musée Hyacinthe-Rigaud. Distinctions recorded are Officer of the Legion of Honour.

Dessin au crayon sur papier brun, 40x32 cm, Musée d’art et d’histoire de la ville de Meudon, inv. 1980-2-20, don Mary-Hood Jacquet-Boggs, 1980
Armande Béjart
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Paul-Jean-Louis Gervais • Born — 7 September 1859 • Birthplace — Toulouse, France • Died — 11 March 1944 • Place of death — Paris, France • Occupation — Painter • Illustration — The madness of Titania Musée des Augustins
Life
Life
Paul-Jean-Louis Gervais was born in Toulouse, France on 7 September 1859. He was a pupil of Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904) and of Gabriel Ferrier (1847–1914). Paul Gervais was teaching at the Académie Julian in 1887, where one of his pupils was Abbott Fuller Graves. In July 1891 Gervais won the Prix du Salon with 19 votes against 16 for M. Chigot and 5 for M. Henri Martin. In 1904 Gervais was at the Académie Vitti, where he taught the British artist Charles Ginner. He died in Paris on 11 March 1944.
Work
Work
Paul Gervais's paintings celebrate seductive women, love, and the virtues of civilization. Pierre Bardou-Job, one of the founders of the JOB cigarette paper company, died in 1892,. His son-in-law Jules Pams commissioned the architect and designer Léopold Carlier to remodel Bardou's Hôtel Pams in Perpignan to his taste. The paintings were by Paul Gervais, a fashionable artist at the time. Gervais also decorated the casinos in Monaco and Nice and the Capitole in Toulouse. An 1895 book reported with grave disapproval that Around 1900 Gervais produced the painting Fright, now lost but reproduced as the frontispiece to Filson Young's The Complete Motorist (1904). It depicted nymphs and centaurs fleeing from a car that is approaching them along a winding coast road with its headlights blazing. The painting was exhibited at the 1904 Salon. In 1909 he created a huge painting that covered the north wall of the Salle Empire of the Hôtel de Paris Monte-Carlo. It depicted nubile young women playing with peacocks and cheetahs, watched by a catlike Sphinx. Gervais made original watercolor illustrations on Japanese paper for a special edition of Le Maison sur le Nil by Pierre Louÿs, which was sold for a high price in 1909.
Identity and overview
Identity and overview
The following is established of the heading itself.
Origins and background
Origins and background
On origins, the institutional record states the following. Born in 1859 at Toulouse. Gervais died in 1936 at Paris.
Works and production
Works and production
The following works and productions are recorded by name or by count. Institutional cataloguing adds that paul Gervais is recorded as human. Recorded with the occupation painter. It is also recorded that paul Gervais is recorded with the gender male. Born on 7 September 1859. It is also recorded that paul Gervais died on 1 January 1936. Institutional cataloguing adds that paul Gervais is classed in the genre portrait.
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.
Toulouse.
Birth place
Paris.
Death place
Publications
*
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
Institutional database
Wikidata, structured authority record Q3371523: Paul GervaisWikimedia Foundation
Institutional witness
People, houses and institutions
Knowledge graph
People, houses and institutions
Teachers, collaborators, publishers and institutions recorded against this person, each on a stated basis.
Died at
1- ParisPlace
Established from a fact already recorded on a verified source.
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 18 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Paintings
18,792 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- Paul FlandrinArtist
- Paul Friedrich MeyerheimArtist
- Paul GachetArtist
- Paul GauguinArtist
- Paul GrunwaldtArtist
- Paul GuigouArtist
- Paul GuiragossianArtist
- Paul HartalArtist
Best supported in this field
For owners
Own a work by Paul Gervais?
A specialist will read what you send and tell you what the house can establish, what it cannot, and whether the object is suited to sale. There is no charge and no obligation. The object stays with you throughout; nothing is shipped to us unless it is arranged in writing beforehand.