Paul Émile Chabas (March 7, 1869 – May 10, 1937) was a French painter and illustrator and member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts.

Chabas was born in Nantes, and had his artistic training under William-Adolphe Bouguereau and Tony Robert-Fleury.

[1] His most famous painting, Matinée de Septembre (September Morn) (1912), became a "succès de scandale" in the United States in May, 1913, when Anthony Comstock, secretary of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, protested against the painting as supposedly immoral.

As late as 1935, a rumor circulated that the young woman was living in poverty and Chabas was receiving letters from people in the US who wanted to come to her aid.

Before the journey he commented on rumors that he disliked the US, as he refused to sell September Morn to a US newspaper publisher after the controversy about the painting began.

"[7] In the 1890s, Chabas illustrated books by such authors as Paul Bourget and Alfred de Musset.