Baudry, the son of a clog-maker from the Vendée, entered the Beaux-Arts thanks to a grant from his home town and shared the Grand Prix de Rome of 1850 with Bouguereau. He decorated the private mansions the Second Empire was building, and incidentally a pastry shop on the rue Montorgueil. Napoleon III entrusted him with the foyer of Garnier's Opéra: ten years of work, thirty-three panels. He also designed a hundred-franc banknote.
The story
The son of a clog-maker of La Roche-sur-Yon, born on 7 November 1828, Baudry entered the École des beaux-arts in 1844 on a grant from his town, in the studio of Michel Martin Drolling. In 1850 he shared the Grand Prix de Rome with William Bouguereau and spent four years at the Villa Medici, where he made Venetian painting his own.
He became the decorator of the great houses of the Second Empire: the Hôtel Fould in 1854, the Hôtel Galliera in 1863, the Hôtel de la Païva. More modestly, the painted panels of the Stohrer pastry shop in the rue Montorgueil are his too.
Napoleon III gave him the decoration of the grand foyer of the opera house Charles Garnier was building: ten years of work, thirty-three panels, a whole history of music painted in the Italian manner. That is the work that made his name.
Elected to the Académie des beaux-arts in 1870, he drew the blue hundred-franc note the Banque de France issued in 1882. He was at work on the decoration of the Panthéon when he died.
He died in Paris on 17 January 1886, in the rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs. By prefectoral order of 11 May that year the city granted him a perpetual plot free of charge in Division 4; his friends paid for the monument, listed as a historic monument since 21 March 1983.
The grave
The monument has been a listed monument since 21 March 1983. His brother, the architect Ambroise Baudry, designed its architecture: a sarcophagus topped by a pyramid of black marble, set against a broad stele of grey marble, with the painter's bust by Paul Dubois at the top. Two bronzes by Antonin Mercié, dated 1887 and cast by the Barbedienne firm, flank it: on the left Grief, a veiled woman leaning on the sarcophagus, gazing at a palette, brushes and a palm; on the right Fame, hovering as she lays a laurel wreath on Baudry's head. The inscription simply says where the whole came from: “To Paul Baudry, his admirers and his friends”.
On site, do not miss
The palette and brushes that Grief gazes upon, to the left of the sarcophagus, and the wreath that Fame lays on the bust.
Visitors' questions
Where is Paul Baudry's grave?
In Division 4, Avenue Principale, first row, a few minutes from the main entrance. The monument, listed since 1983, is easy to spot by its black marble pyramid and the two bronzes flanking it.
Albert BartholoméWhat did Paul Baudry paint at the Opéra?
The decoration of the grand foyer of the Opéra Garnier, commissioned by Napoleon III: ten years of work and thirty-three panels devoted to the history of music, painted in the Venetian manner he had studied in Rome.
François BazinWho paid for his monument?
His admirers and friends, as the inscription says. The plot itself was granted free of charge by the City of Paris, by prefectoral order of 11 May 1886, four months after the painter's death.
Charles AmourouxWhat do the two bronzes represent?
Grief, on the left, a veiled woman leaning on the sarcophagus and gazing at a palette and brushes; Fame, on the right, hovering as she lays a laurel wreath on the painter's head. Both are by Antonin Mercié and dated 1887.
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