Peasant Woman with her Child

genre

A convinced republican, Dalou fought on the barricades of the Paris Commune and was invited by Gustave Courbet, who had become the head of the city's museums, to take the post of curator of sculpture at the Louvre. After the fall of the Commune, he was obliged to flee to England and condemned to life imprisonment in his absence. In his English period, the sculptor produced large terracotta works in which his virtuoso technique is placed in the service of consistent realism.

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About the Artist

Jules Dalou

1838 – 1902

French sculptor, popular under the Third Republic. He was associated with the naturalistic movement in French sculpture and often influenced by the Baroque. Dalou studied with Carpeaux and was later exiled (1871-79) to England for his revolutionary sentiments. He taught in London. His best-known works are his Triumph of the Republic (Place de la Nation, Paris), his reliefs for the chamber of deputies, and his Silenus and monument to Delacroix (both: Luxembourg Gardens). His work was Baroque in its sources although his style is often considered naturalistic. Dalou was particularly skilled in portraiture.

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