Claudius Jacquand

Claude Jacquand, known as Claudius (; 11 December 1803, Lyon – 2 April 1878, Paris) was a French painter of historical tableaus, genre scenes and religious subjects. Biography He came from a family devoted to handicrafts and his father was a comb-maker. He had his first art lessons at the École nationale des beaux-arts de Lyon with Fleury François Richard. Following his mother's death in 1836, he moved to Paris and began exhibiting. In 1839, he became a Knight in the Legion d'Honneur and, a year later, he was awarded the Gold Medal at an exposition in Brussels. The following year, at an exhibition in The Hague, he won another Gold Medal and was decorated with the Order of Leopold. His father died shortly after, leaving him several valuable properties that enabled him to marry the aristocratic Lydia de Forbin, daughter of Louis Nicolas Philippe Auguste de Forbin and widow of the Viscount Alexandre Paul de Pinelli. He taught painting to his son-in-law , who also became a well-known artist. He and his family settled at her hometown of Émeringes, where he built a mansion inspired by a castle he had seen in Paris. He was chosen to be Mayor in 1844. A year later, he exhibited at the Salon, where Charles Baudelaire characterized him as a painter of the "twentieth quality".