Joseph Caraud (French, 1821-1905)

Joseph Caraud was born in Cluny (Saône-et-Loire) on Janruary 5, 1821 and died in November 1905. Caraud is considered a historical and genre painter from the French school.

In 1844, Caraud traveled to Paris to attend the Beaux-Arts Academie. It was his academic studies under Master painter Alexandre Abel de Pujol (1787-1861) and later with Charles Louis Lucien Muller (1815- 1892) that helped launch his career as one of France’s best portrait and genre painters of the 19th century.

Caraud debuted at the Paris Salon of 1843. He submitted several portraits and a wonderful painting with the title “La bonne maman et la petite fille (A Good Grandmother and her Granddaughter). Caraud continued to exhibit portraits, intimate genre and historical paintings at the Salons in Paris where he won numerous awards.

Caraud’ s great success was built around his theatrical anecdotal paintings of life of Henry XV, the episodes in the life of Marie Antoinette and his small colorful idyllic Italian interiors. Caraud traveled extensively throughout France, Italy and Algeria gathering material and doing extensive research for each painting. The authenticity that he placed in each painting created an incredible demand for his work. The demand was so great that he would later reproduce them as engravings.