Jean-François Raffaelli

Bio

A talent who was at once a portraitist, landscapist, genre painter, engraver, lithographer and sculptor, Raffaëlli enjoyed a distinguished career, winning a gold medal at the Exposition Universelle in 1889, being elected to the Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts, and being made both a chevalier and an officer in the Legion d’honneur.

Though his father was Italian, Raffaëlli entered the studio of the French artist Gérome and debuted at the Paris Salon of 1870. He painted predominantly genre paintings and views of surrounding Paris until 1879 at which point, after a trip to England, his subject matter and palette became more somber. Raffaëlli became fascinated by the “vie des petites gens,” depicting them in paintings with realist themes, such as Les invites attendant la noca in the Louvre. The artist, through these works, gained the favor of the period’s naturalist writers, also attempting to capture something of bourgeois life.