Jean Béraud

(French, 1849–1936)

Jean Béraud was a Russian-born French painter best known for his depictions of Parisian life and high society portraits during the Belle Époque period. His style was similar to that of Edgar Degas, Giovanni Boldini, and James Jacques Joseph Tissot, somewhere between the traditional Academic painting seen in the Paris Salons and the looser brushstrokes of early Impressionists. Born on January 12, 1849 in St. Petersburg, Russia to French parents, his father was working as a sculptor at St. Isaac’s Cathedral in St. Petersburg. After his father’s death, Béraud was sent to be raised in Paris. He went on to study under Léon Joseph Florentin Bonnat at the École des Beaux-Arts. The artist enjoyed success at the Salons throughout his career, though he was largely forgotten at the time of his death due to a general lack of interest in Belle Époque painters. Today, Béraud’s works are in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Louvre Museum in Paris, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the National Gallery in London, among others. Béraud died on October 4, 1936 in Paris, France.