HUNGER JUSTIFIES THE MEANS

Painter of genre scenes; caricaturist, draughtsman, lithographer and engraver.

Initially a jewelelry designer and a caricaturist, Paul Eugène Mesplès devoted himself to art after the war of 1870. A student of Jean-Léon Gérôme, he became a draughtsman at teh Museum of Natural History. He first exhibited at teh Salon in 1880 and was made a Chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur in 1896.

Mesplès had made himself known through numerous studies of dancers, both paintings and lithographs. He was also an illustrator and provided drawings for Vadé’s “La pipe cassée” (“The Broken Pipe”), Beaumarchais’s “Théâtre” and the Baron de Vaux’s “La femme de Sport” (“Sportswoman”). He worked on “Monde illustré” (“Illustrated World”), “Illustration” and the “Chat Noir” (“Black Cat”).