Background
Dalou was born on the 31st of January, 1838 in Paris to a working-class family of Huguenot background, he was raised in an atmosphere of secularity and Republican socialism.
Dalou was born on the 31st of January, 1838 in Paris to a working-class family of Huguenot background, he was raised in an atmosphere of secularity and Republican socialism.
Jules Dalou was the pupil of Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, who sponsored him for the Petite École (future École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs), where he sympathized with Alphonse Legros and Fantin-Latour. In 1854 he attended the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris in the François-Joseph Duret classroom.
Dalou first exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1861, but he made no secret of his working-class sympathies. When in 1871 the troubles of the Commune broke out in Paris, he took refuge in England, where he rapidly made a name through his appointment at South Kensington. Here he laid the foundation of that great improvement which resulted in the development of the modern British school of sculpture, and at the same time executed a remarkable series of terra-cotta statuettes and groups, such as " A French Peasant Woman " (of which a bronze version under the title of " Maternity " is erected outside the Royal Exchange), the group of two Boulogne women called " The Reader " and " A Woman of Boulogne telling her Beads. " He returned to France in 1879 and produced a number of masterpieces. His great relief of " Mirabeau replying to M. de Dreux-Breze, " exhibited in 1883 and now at the Palais Bourbon, and the highly decorative panel, " Triumph of the Republic, " were followed in 1885 by " The Procession of Silenus". For the city of Paris he executed his most elaborate and splendid achievement, the vast monument, " The Triumph of the Republic, " erected, after twenty years' work, in the Place de la Nation, showing a symbolical figure of the Republic, aloft on her car, drawn by lions led by Liberty, attended by Labour and Justice, and followed by Peace. It is somewhat in the taste of the Louis XIV period, ornate, but exquisite in every detail. Within a few days there was also inaugurated his great "Monument to Alphand" (1899), which almost equalled in the success achieved the monument to Delacroix in the Luxembourg Gardens. Dalo was one of the founders of the New Salon (Societi Nationale des Beaux-Arts), and was the first president of the sculpture section. In portraiture, whether statues or busts, his work is not less remarkable.
Jules Dalou was married to Irma Vuillier, a partnership that sustained him throughout his life. They had one daughter, who was mentally handicapped and required constant care.