Auguste Raynaud | Awaiting his return

Auguste Raynaud (1854-1937) was a popular 19th-century Genre and portrait painter.

Born and raised in Lyon, Auguste Raynaud attended the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he studied with Danguin, Henri Lehmann and Félix-Auguste Clément.

In 1876, he moved to Lyon, rue de l'Annonciade, and presented a painting to the Société des Amis des Arts d'Avignon, entitled "Giotto, enfant dans la campagne du Tyrol".

He began exhibiting at the Salon des Artistes Français the following year, and moved to Paris in the 1880s.

He remained very attached to his hometown, and painted "M. Gromier, ancien professeur à l'École de Médecine de Lyon" in 1885, commissioned by the city of Lyon and deposited at the Lyon Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy.

Raynaud also contributed to a collection by his friend, the poet and chansonnier Camille Roy.

For "Chansons et poésies de Camille Roy illustrées par ses amis", published in Lyon in 1895, he illustrated "La fille aux anneaux d'or", depicting a young woman in the courtyard of a medieval building, leaning on the curbstone of a well and holding a lute.

In the same work, he illustrates "Les Voix du Tocsin", a poem evoking the bombardment of Strasbourg by the Prussians in the summer of 1870, during the Franco-Prussian war.

A painter of genre scenes and portraits, Auguste Raynaud was also influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite movement, and produced works imbued with poetic, lyrical symbolism.

Although little is known today about his career, the subjects he tackled in his body of work suggest that the painter made several trips to Italy, Spain and Morocco in particular.