Leon-Jean-Basile Perrault

Leon-Jean-Basile Perrault (1832-1908).

Painter of genre, history, religion and portrait stands in peril of not being remembered as distinctively as his successes might merit. For our part, we may narrow this great artist’s claims at once by rejecting his religious painting, and we may be inclined to go on and deny him the title of historical painter, so that, although we shall have paintings of religious subjects and of historical subjects to consider, we shall in truth be considering them as work of a painter of genre and portrait.

Assuredly, we are not alone in judging Leon Perrault not to be, in the legitimate sense, a religious painter; but in the matter of history, opinions may be divided. In symbolic genre, on the other hand, he is unmatched, and in portrait so masterly, that his place in those arts is fixed forever.