Alexandre Cabanel

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Alexandre Cabanel, Self Portrait (1847).
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Alexandre Cabanel, Self Portrait (1847).

Alexandre Cabanel (28 September 1823 - 23 January 1889) was a French painter.

[edit] Life

Cabanel was born in Montpellier. He painted historical, classical and religious subjects. He was also well-known as a portrait painter.

In 1845, the young artist won the Grand Prix de Rome. Cabanel was elected a member of the Institut 1863 and appointed professor at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in the same year.

Cabanel won the Grande Médaille d'Honneur at the Salons of 1865, 1867 and 1878.

He was closely connected to the Paris Salon: "He was elected regularly to the Salon jury and his pupils could be counted by the hundred at the Salons. Through them, Cabanel did more than any other artist of his generation to form the character of belle époque French painting" (Dictionary of Art (1996) vol. 5, pp. 341-344).

A great academic painter, his "Birth of Venus" is one of the most known 19th century paintings. The picture was bought by the emperor Napoleon III and there´s a copy in the U.S. At the Metropolitain Museum of Art in New York City. Althought it is not the original. It is a smaller replica painted in 1875 for a banker, John Wolf. It was gifted to them by Wolf in 1893.

[edit] Selected anthology of works

The Birth of Venus (1863).
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The Birth of Venus (1863).
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