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Auguste Préault

Born: Paris, 9 October 1809
Died: Paris, 11 January 1879
Nationality: French
Background: 

working-class

Studies: 

apprenticed to ornamental carver; with Pierre-Jean David d’Angers

Career: 

1833 – Salon debut with Two Poor Women, Beggary, and Gilbert Dying in the Hospital (all destroyed)

1834 – Pariahs (destroyed) rejected by Salon jury; Tuerie (Slaughter) accepted

1835-48 – due to his Republican political sympathies, Préault’s submissions  are rejected by Salon juries (except in 1837 when an earlier work, Head of an Old Man, was accepted)

1849 – wins Salon’s second-class medal, thus exempt from future Salon juries

1853-63 –refuses to participate in the Salon for political reasons

Commissions from: 

French government

Important Artworks: 

Ophelia, 1842 (Musée d’ Orsay, Paris)

See Nadar’s portrait of Préault