Portrait of young woman with blond hair

Oil on canvas
Signed upper right
55 x 45 cm

Son of Henry Rousset, winegrower in Auxerre, Jules was born on March 25, 1840 in Aillant-sur-Milleron in the Loiret, halfway between Gien and Auxerre.

A student of Jules Quantin, Léon Cogniet and Isidore Pils at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, the artist exhibited at the Paris Salon from 1867 until 1894. He was also present at the regional Salon of Blois in the same years.
Jules Rousset practiced portrait, still life and naturalist painting without departing from drawing. Indeed, he also regularly produced, and in parallel with his paintings, watercolors, either landscapes or portraits, which he also presented at the various Salons.

Member of the Society of French Artists, he lived mainly in Auxerre and Paris. He is known to have stayed in Rome for at least five years around 1874.

The artist married late on October 31, 1895 in Boulogne-Billancourt with Louise Thierry, fifteen years his junior.

Today he is commonly presented as an orientalist, which is not the case. It is in reality a surname confusion with his contemporary the painter Paul Rousset who presented him with orientalist paintings at the Salon in the 1890s.

Jules Rousset, who died in 1921, is present today in the museums of Orléans and Auxerre.