Hippolyte Moulin

Moulin, a shopkeeper's son, entered the École des Beaux-Arts in 1855 but was unable to afford to continue the lessons and had to become a language teacher in Paris to support himself.

He subsequently studied with Auguste-Louis-Marie Ottin and with Antoine-Louis Barye.His bronze statue A Lucky Find at Pompeii (Une Trouvaille à Pompei) (1863) depicts a nude boy with a spade dancing for joy with one leg raised, because he has unearthed a Roman statuette.

The life-size original was bought by the French Government for 7,000 francs and exhibited at the Exposition Universelle in 1867.

Moulin spent his last few years in a rest home for the mentally ill. Biographical information adapted from Peter Fusco and H.W.

Janson, The Romantics to Rodin: French Nineteenth-century Sculpture from North American Collections (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) 1980.

Hyppolite Moulin, 1864
Un secret d'en Haut ("A Secret from on High"), 1875 ( Musée d'Orsay )
Moulin's Trouvaille à Pompei ("A Lucky Find at Pompeii"), 1863 ( Musée d'Orsay )