Jules Desbois 1851-1935

Born in Parçay-les-Pins into a family of innkeepers, Jules Desbois began working at a young age for a religious sculpture workshop in Angers, where he learned stone carving, before entering the École des Beaux-Arts in the city in 1869. A scholarship recipient from the department of Maine-et-Loire, he was admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he studied under Jules Cavelier from 1874 to 1878. He participated for the first time in the Salon des Artistes Français in 1875, immediately winning a third-class medal, and his work was purchased by the State.

In 1878, upon leaving the school, he met Auguste Rodin on the construction site of the Palais du Trocadéro, built for the Exposition Universelle. After a two-year stay in New York, where he worked with the American sculptor John Quincy Adams Ward, he returned to Paris and in 1884 joined Rodin’s studio, becoming both a close friend and a key collaborator. Rodin entrusted him with carving certain marbles, involved him in major commissions, secured him a position as a modeler at the Sèvres manufactory, and introduced him to important patrons such as Baron Alphonse de Rothschild.

Awarded a gold medal at the 1889 Exposition Universelle, Desbois from 1890 onward focused on the newly founded Salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, where he also met with considerable success. Inspired by Rodin, he was able to free himself from the constraints of his academic training to develop a more personal aesthetic that created a sensation, combining lyrical expressionism with the elegance of Art Nouveau.