Gabriel Ferrier 1847-1914

Born in Nîmes to a pharmacist father, Gabriel Ferrier entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he studied under Ernest Hébert and Isidore Pils. He began exhibiting at the Salons in 1869. In 1872, he won the first Grand Prix de Rome in painting for A Scene of the Flood, and he stayed at the Académie de France in Rome from 1873 to 1876.

Upon returning to France, he specialized in portraits of notable figures of the Third Republic. In 1883, he traveled to Algeria, producing several orientalist paintings. He was awarded a gold medal at the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris.

Gabriel Ferrier later became a drawing professor at the Écoles de la Légion d’Honneur and taught at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, succeeding Jean-Léon Gérôme. He was elected a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1906.