Théodule Ribot

Théodule-Augustin Ribot was a French realist painter and printmaker.
He was born in Saint-Nicolas-d'Attez, and studied at the École des Arts et Métiers de Châlons before moving to Paris in 1845. There he found work decorating gilded frames for a mirror manufacturer. Although he received a measure of artistic training while working as an assistant to Auguste-Barthélémy Glaize, Ribot was mostly self-taught as a painter. After a trip to Algeria around 1848, he returned in 1851 to Paris, where he continued to make his living as an artisan. In the late 1850s, working at night by lamplight, he began to paint seriously, depicting everyday subjects in a realistic style.
Ribot worked in at least three mediums, oil paint, pencil or crayon draughtsmanship and etching. Some drawings were complete works, others fragmentary but powerful preparations for painted canvases. The etchings, of which there are only about a couple of dozen, are of the middle period of his practice; they show a diversity of method as well as of theme.
He made his Salon debut in 1861 with four paintings of kitchen subjects.