(b Monay, Jura, 26 April 1819; d Paris, 2 Nov 1876). French sculptor. The son of a vine-grower from the Franche Comté, Perraud was from the same region as Gustave Courbet but represented a diametrically opposed approach to art. He was apprenticed to an ornamental wood-carver in Salins and then attended drawing school in Lyon before arriving in Paris and entering the Ecole des Beaux Arts in 1843. There his masters were Etienne-Jules Ramey and Augustin-Alexandre Dumont. In 1847 he won the Prix de Rome with a plaster relief of Telemachus Carrying the Ashes of Hippias to Phalantes (probably destr.), considered by the Ecole to be a paradigm of student achievement, with its highly considered classical disposition, studied draperies and modern pathos. In his relief The Farewell (plaster, 1848–9; Lons-le-Saunier, Mus. B.-A.), executed during his stay in Rome, Perraud simplified and refined a related motif with the perfectionism that was to retain for him the respect of his colleagues. Although on his return to Paris he participated in the architectural decorations of the Second Empire (1851–70), contributing one of the façade groups, Lyric Drama (Echaillon stone, 1865–9), to the new Paris Opéra, his most concentrated effort was reserved for free-standing marble figures and groups. Particularly noteworthy examples are the Childhood of Bacchus (1861–3; Paris, Mus. Louvre), Despair (plaster, exh. Salon 1861, Lons-le-Saunier, Mus. B.-A.; marble, Paris, Mus. d’Orsay) and Day (exh. Salon 1875; Paris, Jardins de l’Observatoire).