French artist Pascal-Adolphe-Jean Dagnan-Bouveret was BOTD in 1852. Born in Paris to a mercantile family, he was raised by his grandfather after his father emigrated to Brazil. In 1869, he was accepted as an art student at the the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris, where he formed a close friendship with fellow student Gustave-Claude-Etienne Courtois, sharing a studio and living together throughout the 1880s. His early work was inspired by Classical Greek and Roman sculpture, and was exhibited at the 1874 Salon de peinture et de sculpture and the Salon des Artistes Français. After winning second prize in the 1876 Prix de Rome competition, he largely abandoned classical composition in favour of the burgeoning Impressionist movement, visiting Brittany frequently where he painted scenes from rural life and several portraits of women in Breton costume. He and Courtois were among the first artists to utilise photography to bring greater realism to their work. Dagnan-Bouveret was also noted for his erotically-charged portraits of handsome young men, frequently using Courtois’ lover Carl Ernst von Stetten as a model. Dagnan-Bouveret married Courtois’ cousin Anne-Marie Walter in 1879, under whose influence he became a devout Christian, undertaking a series of well-regarded religious paintings. His most celebrated work Le Cène (The Last Supper) was exhibited at the Salon de Champ-de-Mars and later purchased by Comtesse René de Béarn, who installed it in the Byzantine Room at the Hôtel de Béarn. His work became highly successful in the United States, where he received a number of commissions from art collector Henry Clay Frick. Awarded the Légion d’honneur in 1892, he was elected to the Académie des beaux-arts of the Institute de France, becoming its president in 1914. His latter life was marred by the death of his son Jean in 1918 from the Spanish flu. Largely uninterested by the innovations of Modernist and Cubist artists in the early 20th century, he continued painting religious images and portraits, retiring to Quincey where he died in 1929, aged 77.