Biography

French academic sculptor who had a great reputation during the Second Empire, but his style fell out of fashion soon after his death.

Perraud was student at the École des Beaux-Arts from 1843 under Étienne-Jules Ramey and Augustin-Alexandre Dumont, co-winner of the Prix de Rome in 1847 with a plaster relief of Telemachus Carrying the Ashes of Hippias to Phalantes (probably destroyed). In his relief The Farewell (plaster, 1848-49; Lons-le-Saunier, Musée des Beaux-Arts), executed during his stay in Rome, Perraud simplified and refined a related motif with perfectionism. 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. Examples are the Childhood of Bacchus (1861-63; Musée du Louvre, Paris) and the Despair (Musée d'Orsay, Paris).

He was officer in the Legion of Honour in 1867, and member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts. He is buried at Montparnasse Cemetery, Paris.