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(1) Félix(-Joseph) Barrias
(b Paris, 13 Sept 1822; d Paris, 25 Jan 1907). Painter and illustrator. He was a pupil of his father, a miniaturist and painter on porcelain. He began his training in the studio of Léon Cogniet at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, on 7 April 1838. From 1840 he exhibited in the Salon many portraits that were dismissed by the critics as insignificant. This failure induced him to turn to the elevated genres of history and religious painting, which were more likely to bring him critical recognition. In 1844 he won the Prix de Rome with Cincinnatus Receiving the Ambassadors of the Senate (Paris, Ecole N. Sup. B.-A.). Profoundly academic in handling, this work adheres closely to the rules of Neo-classicism. The clearly legible frieze composition exhibits a severity and a certain stylistic rigidity that characterized almost all his subsequent output. His career developed within the sphere of academic art, of which he was a notable representative. He also enjoyed the rewards of an official career: third-class medal in 1847 for Sappho, first-class medal in 1851 for the Exiles of Tiberius (1850; Paris, Mus. d’Orsay; on loan to the Hôtel de Ville, Bourges), another medal in 1855 for the Jubilee of 1300 in Rome (Laval, Mus. Vieux-Château) and a gold medal in the Exposition Universelle of 1889.
Part of the Barrias family
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