Jean Beraud
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(b St Petersburg, 31 Dec 1849; d Paris, ? 1935).
French painter. His father was a sculptor and after his death in
1853 the family left St Petersburg to return to Paris. In 1871,
after the Franco-Prussian War, Béraud enrolled in painting classes
in the studio of Léon Bonnat. He began his career as a portrait
painter, following the example of Bonnat, but by the end of the
1870s and through to the 1890s, he favoured depictions of the daily
life of the Parisian boulevards (e.g. La Pâtisserie Gloppe, 1889;
Paris, Carnavalet). Urbane and sophisticated, he cultivated the
company of the Franco-Russian aristocracy in Paris, several of whom
were his patrons. He achieved success and honours quickly,
exhibiting regularly at the annual Salons from 1873 to 1889. He also
painted lovers’ rendezvous and such genre scenes as Return from the
Funeral (exh. Salon 1876; untraced), all of which are rendered in
minute detail in a naturalist vein, often with humour and
occasionally mockery. By the 1890s he was painting religious themes
in contemporary settings, creating an atmosphere reminiscent of the
work of 17th-century artists from northern Europe. Paintings of this
sort, such as Mary Magdalene in the House of the Pharisees (1891;
Paris, Mus. d’Orsay), were considered quite scandalous when
exhibited. He was an active founding member of the Société Nationale
des Beaux-Arts, Paris, showing there from 1890 to 1929. In 1936, a
year after his death, the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts and the
Musée Carnavalet, Paris, held memorial exhibitions of his work.
