Rupert Charles Wulsten Bunny (29 September 186425 May 1947) was an Australian painter. Born and raised in Melbourne, Victoria, he achieved success and critical acclaim as an expatriate in fin-de-siècle Paris. He gained an honourable mention at the Paris Salon of 1890 with his painting Tritons and a bronze medal at the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1900 with his Burial of St Catherine of Alexandria. The French state acquired 13 of his works for the Musée du Luxembourg and regional collections. He was a "sumptuous colourist and splendidly erudite painter of ideal themes, and the creator of the most ambitious Salon paintings produced by an Australian." Early life and education Bunny was the third son of Brice Frederick Bunny, a British Victorian county court judge, and his German mother, Marie Hedwig Dorothea Wulsten. He was born in St Kilda, Melbourne. He had an affluent and privileged upbringing. During his childhood, Bunny had an extended trip in Europe, which lasted two years. He returned to Australia trilingual, in English, French and German. In early 1881, Bunny was enrolled into the University of Melbourne, intending to study civil engineering. Instead, Bunny began his artistic training in 1881 to 1883 in Melbourne at the National Gallery School of Design under O.R. Campbell and George Folingsby. He studied alongside artists such as Fred McCubbin, Aby Altson and John Longstaff. In 1884, at age 20, he moved to London to continue his artistic education. He studied under Phillip Calderon at St Johns Wood Art School for 18 months. Upon meeting the French academic history painter Jean-Paul Laurens in London, Bunny enrolled in Laurens' atelier in Paris, where he studied for 2 years until 1886. Finishing his artistic training, he studied under Pierre Paul Léon Glaize at the Académie Colarossi in 1890. Critics give responsibility to his cosmopolitan childhood for his ability to assimilate easily into Parisian society and its artistic circles, unlike many other expatriates. He was well respected in Paris, where he remained until 1932. Career Bunny had a traditional and academic education in the arts under Calderon and Laurens. Despite this, Bunny's artistic practice was heavily influenced by, and imitated, his contemporaries. Whilst he was not an avant gardist, Bunny was a modern artist. His early works, before the turn of the century, are described as 'neo-classical style touched with Pre-Raphaelitism' or as symbolist. Mythology, both Christian and classical, provided the subjects for