Louis Boulanger Biography

Louis Boulanger enrolled in 1821 at the Ecole des beaux-arts where he attended the workshop of Guillaume Guillon Lethiere and received a solid classical training. Next he made a presentation for the prix de Rome, in 1824, in which he finished logiste. He became the companion of Eugene Deveria and an intimate of Victor Hugo as well as different Parisian Romantic circles, which had a decisive effect on his career.

Louis Boulanger saw great success at the Salon of 1827 thanks to his Supplice de Mazeppa, was awarded a medal on the occasion of a special salon for the new school, which also showed La Naissance d'Henri IV by Eugene Deveria and La Mort de Sardanapale by Delacroix. However, this success did not continue in the young painter's career. He painted the portrait of several personalities of the era, including the most famous example, Balzac in a monk's robe, now at the musee des beaux-arts in Tours. Several of Boulanger's works are held at the maison Victor Hugo in place des Vosges, Paris.

Louis Boulanger was illustrator of several Romantic works of Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas, as well as a series of strange lithographs on fantastical themes customarily attached to the frenetic vein which certain artists exploited in this period. La Ronde du Sabbat by Louis Boulanger is the only icon of this poorly-studied tendency.