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 the 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 constraints 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.

Dalou produced studies of nude bathers throughout his career, but rarely exhibited them publicly. They were however collected by private buyers during his lifetime. Unlike Rodin’s multiple use of professional models, Dalou turned again and again to his wife Irma. The nude studies: more often than not domestic in their appearance, were only cast and offered for sale at the end of the artists’ life, to provide for their daughter Georgette who suffered from an intellectual disability and required constant care.

The sense of realism in the bather figures can be linked to Rodin of course, but in this case also Degas whose sculptures in wax created a sensation when discovered in his studio after his death.