Galerie Paul Prouté

André Giroux studied briefly with the architect and painter Jean-Thomas Thibault and with his father, a former pupil of Jacques-Louis David and founder of the Maison Giroux, a luxury department stores’. The young Giroux entered the École des Beaux-Arts in 1821. It was not until 1825 that he applied for the Grand Prix de Rome for historical landscape painting, which he won with his painting La Chasse de Méléagre (The Hunting of Meleagre), now in the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He then joined the Académie de France in Rome for four years, where he practised plein-air easel painting with other boarders. Italy was not his only destination, as the painter travelled extensively: Fontainebleau, Normandy, Grenoble, the Alps, Switzerland and Austria were among his many peregrinations. Initially known for his highly academic style, Giroux gradually moved away from it and began a transition towards greater realism, as evidenced by these two oil paintings.