Realist painter who led the Commune’s Federation of Artists and went into Swiss exile blamed for the Vendôme Column
Born to prosperous farmers in Ornans in the Jura, he launched Realism with A Burial at Ornans and The Stone Breakers and was close to Proudhon; in 1870 he refused the Legion of Honour. As president of the Commune’s Federation of Artists in 1871 he demanded self-government for museums and an end to censorship, and after winning a by-election in the 6th arrondissement he sided with the minority against the Committee of Public Safety. For proposing to remove the Vendôme Column he was sentenced to six months after Bloody Week; ordered in 1873 to pay for its rebuilding, he fled to Switzerland and died at La Tour-de-Peilz.