French 1844-1910 Henri Rousseau Locations He was born in Laval in the Loire Valley into the family of a plumber. He attended Laval High School as a day student and then as a boarder, after his father became a debtor and his parents had to leave the town upon the seizure of their house. He was mediocre in some subjects at the high school but won prizes for drawing and music. He worked for a lawyer and studied law, but "attempted a small perjury and sought refuge in the army," serving for four years, starting in 1863. With his father's death, Rousseau moved to Paris in 1868 to support his widowed mother as a government employee. In 1871, he was promoted to the toll collector's office in Paris as a tax collector. He started painting seriously in his early forties, and by age 49 he retired from his job to work on his art. His wife died in 1888 and he later remarried. Rousseau claimed he had "no teacher other than nature", although he admitted he had received "some advice" from two established Academic painters, Felix Auguste-Clement and Jean-Leon Gerome. Essentially he was self-taught and is considered to be a naive or primitive painter.  Related Paintings of Henri Rousseau :. | The Customs House | Portrait of a Child | The Muse Inspiring the Poet | Beauty and the Beast | Happy Quartet |
Related Artists:
August Allebe
painted Young woman in 1863
Charles Dauphin
Charles Claude Dauphin or Dofin, called in Italian Delfino, a French painter of historical subjects and portraits, was the son of Olivier Dauphin. He went to Turin about the year 1664, and worked there for the Prince of Carignano. He was also employed for the churches, but his works are in no great estimation, abounding as they do with the most ridiculous absurdities. In the church of San Carlo is an altar-piece by him, described by Lanzi as a most ludicrous composition. He died in 1677.
RILEY, John
English Baroque Era Painter, 1646-1691 English painter. He was the son of John Riley of St Botolphs, Bishopsgate, and a pupil of Isaac Fuller and Gerard Soest. He is said to have worked independently for some years, but he made no impact before Lely's death in 1680. Riley maintained a prolific and successful practice as a portrait painter over the next decade against keen foreign competition.