Family

Paul-Albert Besnard (1849-1934) was a student of the academic painter Alexandre Cabanel (1823-1889), won the prix de Rome in 1874 and was among the founders of the Société Nationale in 1890. Throughout his career his style remained in between academic and impressionistic. During the last thirty years of his life he held important positions in the Académie de France in Rome, the Ecole des beaux-arts, the Académie française, the Académie de Saint Luc and the Royal Academy.
In this etching, Besnard portrayed four of his family members. The profile in the lower left foreground is that of his wife, Madame Besnard. Behind Madame Besnard is a profile view of their daughter, Germaine, and their oldest son, Robert. Philippe, the youngest boy in the family, is tucked into the lower right of the composition. The artist's youngest daughter, Jean, was only several months old at the time of this portrait and was therefore left out of the composition. Two states exists of this etching. This state was published in the July 1890 edition of the Gazette des Beaux-Arts.