The directory «Artists»

Giraud Pierre François Eugène
(1806—1881)

As a painter, engraver, and caricaturist, Eugène Giraud passed the competitive exam for the Ecole des Beaux Arts in 1821, a pupil of Hersent and Richomme. Having won the Prix de Rome in 1826 for engraving, he appeared regularly at the Salon from 1831 to 1866 and moved in the circles around Princess Mathilda, sister of Emperor Napoleon III. He made several trips to Spain. The set of drawings in brown ink in Castres illustrate the fun trip of a happy group comprising Alexandre Dumas the Elder and the Younger, Louis Boulanger, Auguste Maquet and André Desbarolles, during a trip from Paris to Cadiz in Autumn 1846. Ten years later, Alexandre Dumas the Elder published an account of those travels entitled "De Paris à Cadix". Giraud's very down-to-earth drawings, give us a glimpse of the various stages of this journey which they obviously enjoyed very much.

France, 1952, Gustave Flaubert