Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel (18 October 1850 – 16 March 1913) was a French painter and illustrator best known for his watercolours for children's books. He was a major figure in nineteenth-century children's book illustration. Early life and education Boutet de Monvel was born in Orléans, the second of nine children; his father, Benjamin Boutet de Monvel (1820–1880), was a physics and chemistry professor. His maternal grandfather was the tenor Adolphe Nourrit (1802–1839), and there were other artists in the family. He lived mainly in Paris as a child. He began attending the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in early 1870. During the Franco-Prussian War, he served in the French army. With the return of peace, he began attending the Académie Julian, where he worked with Gustave Boulanger and Jules Lefèbvre, both major influences on his early work. He also worked with Carolus-Duran. Paintings In 1873 he exhibited for the first time at the Salon, showing a painting entitled Temptation. He won a bronze medal in 1878 for The Good Samaritan and a silver medal in 1880 for The Lesson Before the Sabbath. Three trips to Algeria (1876, 1878, 1880) had a strong influence on his style as he responded to the quality of the light. He became a plein air painter and his palette shifted towards orange and blue as its base colors. In the Paris salon of 1880, he showed one of his Algerian paintings, On the High Plateaus. In 1885, he exhibited The Rabble's Apotheosis, or the Triumph of Robert Macaire at an exhibition organized by the Society of French Artists. However, the painting's royalist theme so angered Edmond Turquet, then the Deputy Secretary of State for Fine Art, that it was removed just before the private viewing and moved to the premises of the newspaper Le Figaro. He was an early member of the Society of French Watercolourists, which had recently been founded by Édouard Detaille. One of the first watercolours he sent to their exhibition was a portrait of a young woman in Renaissance clothing; its great success opened the door for a career as a portrait painter. His skill at capturing the moods of children gained him many commissions from upper middle class parents. He received so many commissions for portraits that at one time he contemplated giving up book illustration (see below). Illustrations In 1876, he married Jeanne Labaigue of Orléans, and their