He made his official debut at the Paris salon of 1874 (with his painting Jacob and the Angel).
Among his commissions are a large number of allegorical architectural figural sculptures, historical portraits (Victor Hugo, and Geographie for the Sorbonne, 1901) and others for the monumental Gare d'Orsay (now the Musée d'Orsay), the Beaux-Arts de Paris, the Grand Palais for the 1900 Exposition, and the Hôtel Dufayel, Avenue des Champs-Élysées (1906, demolished), which was very much criticised; as well as monuments for North[3] and South America.
He was also the author of portrait busts and statues of Victor Hugo, Léo Delibes, Ferdinand Fabre and a large output of classical subjects.
He taught at Beaux-Arts de Paris, where his notable students included Fanny Rozet.
[4][5] His portrait bust, sculpted by Ernest Henri Dubois, is at the Musée des Augustins, Toulouse, which also has a considerable series of statuettes and maquettes, or sculptural sketches.