Adrien Moreau

Biography of Adrien Moreau ( 1843-1906 )

Although he was related to many artists, Adrien Moreau’s family foresaw a career for him as a lawyer. But he left Troyes and moved to Paris to enroll in the National School of Fine Arts. His first painting master was Léon Cogniet, and then the following year the realist painter Isidore Pils. He specialized in genre and history painting.

He exhibited for the first time at the 1868 Paris Salon with a religious subject that won him general acclaim, then a neo-classical subject the following year. During the war of 1870, his studio was partially destroyed by an explosion. Back at the Salon of French Artists in 1873, he presented the painting “Amateur Concert in an Artist’s Studio”.

Throughout his career he received numerous commissions from publishers to illustrate the works of great French writers, such as Voltaire or Balzac: Candide, The Chouans, Letters of Two Brides, A Woman of Thirty, The Magic Skin, and others. He produced gouaches and watercolors of great quality.

He was awarded the Legion of Honor in 1892. Still active in the Salon, he continued to exhibit there until his death in 1906.

This painting was exhibited at the Salon of French Artists in 1873.