Aimé-Jules Dalou (1838-1902) was one of only a handful of leading late-nineteenth century French Sculptors, whose reputation was perhaps second only to his contemporaries, Henri Chapu (1833-1891) and Marius Jean Antonin Mercié (1845-1916). Dalou was hugely influential and was a founding member of the Société des Artistes Français and later a founder of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. He was officially rewarded with the highest rank of the Légion d'Honneur two years before his death, with the inauguration of the Triumph of Republic, in 1899.

He started his artistic training in 1852 at the Petite Ecole after being encouraged to do so by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, where he studied drawing and modelling. Carpeaux continued to support Dalou throughout his career and influenced his sculpture greatly. Dalou began employment in the field of decorative sculpture working for two companies in Paris, Lefèvre and Favière goldsmiths. During this time he contributed towards the architectural features of Hôtel de la Païva, the then home of the infamous French courtesan Esther Lachmann known as La Païva.

Dalou's unique approach lay in his broad range of subject, painterly and sculptural source material, though which he absorbed an impressive spectrum of inspiration. The work of an eighteenth-century sculptor, Louis-François Roubiliac, played a significant role in Dalou's artistic development, whose sculptures he studied whilst in London. Dalou's work includes friezes, maquettes, reliefs, and individual bronze figures. He is known for Baroque-inspired allegorical group compositions, as much as for his depictions of the French rural labouring classes. Dalou encouraged students of art to free themselves from the constrainsts of established traditions, with his style and teachings thought to have awakened a new generation of young British sculptors whose work was later aligned to the New Sculpture movement.

Despair is perhaps the Dalou sculpture that links closer than any other to Rodin’s work. The subject was duplicated by Rodin in the form of his small patinated plaster of the same title, with both sitting on rocky outcrops. This exotic pose is reminiscent of Rodin’s dance figures or the figure in Prodigal Son.

Dalou’s version was originally sculpted as part of his Monument to Gambetta, but like Rodin, it was removed and produced as a separate published model. This method was central to Rodin’s working approach, and throughout his career he used the figures from the Gates of Hell as a source for individual imagery. Rodin’s Despair was integrated into the Gates around 1889, but also exhibited as an individual sculpture at the Venice Biennale in 1897. There is another plaster version in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.