Biography

French sculptor and writer. Having attended drawing school in Dijon, he entered the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris, in 1841. He won the Prix de Rome in 1845 and during his stay in Rome produced several works that were enthusiastically received by the Académie. These included the marble statue of Anacreon (exh. Salon 1852; Paris, Musée d'Orsay), the hedonistic Classical subject and precise execution of which betray Guillaume's debt to his master, James Pradier. Another piece from his years in Rome, The Reaper (bronze, 1849; Paris, Musée d'Orsay), while not going so far as to infringe Classical conventions, frees the representation of labour from traditional poetics.