(b Paris, 25 April 1824; d Paris, Oct 1888). French painter. Born of creole parents, Boulanger became an orphan at 14. His uncle and guardian sent him to the studio of Pierre-Jules Jollivet and then in 1840 to Paul Delaroche, whose prosaic Realism and dry, careful technique influenced Boulanger’s style of painting. A first visit to Algeria in 1845 gave him an interest in North African subjects, which was taken up later by his friend Jean-Léon Gérôme. In 1849 he won the Prix de Rome with Ulysses Recognized by his Nurse (Paris, Ecole N. Sup. B.-A.), in which he combined academic figure drawing with Pompeian touches inspired by Ingres’s Antiochus and Stratonice (1840; Chantilly, Mus. Condé). Boulanger’s knowledge of the ruins at Pompeii, which he visited while studying at the Ecole de Rome, gave him ideas for many future pictures, including the Rehearsal in the House of the Tragic Poet (1855; St Petersburg, Hermitage), in which the influence of Stratonice is still obvious. This was later developed into the Rehearsal of the ‘Flute Player’ and the ‘Wife of Diomedes’ (1861; Versailles, Château), which recorded the preparations being made for a performance given before the imperial Court in Napoleon’s mock-Pompeian Paris house. Boulanger specialized in painting studies of daily life from ancient Greece and Rome, as well as Arab subjects. He also painted a number of decorative schemes, at the theatre of the Casino in Monte Carlo (1879), at the Paris Opéra (1861–74) and other locations, opportunities gained through his friendship with CHARLES GARNIER, his fellow pensionnaire at the Ecole de Rome. He entered the Institut de France in 1882 and became an influential teacher, well known for his dislike of the Impressionists and their successors.

• Boulanger, Gustave(-Clarence-Rodolphe)
  • France, §XV, 6: Art education: The Ecole des Beaux-Arts and teaching studios in the 19th century
  • collaboration
    • Lenepveu, Jules-Eugène
  • groups and movements
    • Second Empire style
  • patrons and collectors
    • Bonaparte: (10) Napoléon
    • Gaugain, Henri
  • pupils
    • Ahmet, Ali
      • Ahmet Ali
    • Benson, Frank W(eston)
      • Benson, Frank W.
    • Boutet de Monvel, (Louis-)Maurice
      • Boutet de Monvel, Maurice
    • Dewing, Thomas Wilmer
      • Dewing, Thomas Wilmer
    • Hassam, (Frederick) Childe
      • Hassam, Childe
    • Hitchcock, George
      • Hitchcock, George
    • Khnopff, Fernand
      • Khnopff, Fernand
    • Melchers, (Julius) Gari(baldi)
      • Melchers, Gari
    • Metcalf, Willard Leroy
      • Metcalf, Willard Leroy
    • Moore, George (Augustus) (1852-1933)
      • Moore, George
    • Osman Hamdi
      • Osman Hamdi
    • Rochegrosse, Georges (Antoine Marie)
      • Rochegrosse, Georges
    • Tarbell, Edmund C(harles)
      • Tarbell, Edmund C.
    • Weir, Julian Alden
      • Weir: (3) Julian Alden Weir
  • works
    • Pompeian Revival, §4: The 19th century and later