Édouard Viénot was a successful society portrait painter with a studio at 92 rue de la Victoire, Paris. He was born in Fontainebleau on 13 September 1804. He entered the École des Beaux Arts in Paris on 4 October 1822. Viénot is probably to be identified with "Le chevalier Viennot" who was active as a portrait painter in London in 1826 and 1827, when he had an address at 20 York Street, Portman Square. From this address he exhibited two paintings at the Royal Academy in 1826 and three paintings at the Society of British Artists in 1827. All three of these paintings are catalogued in the "watercolour, miniature or print" category. In France, Viénot's paintings were regularly selected by the jury of the Paris Salon between 1831 and 1870, and included Portrait du lieutenant-colonele baron S... and Portrait de Mademoiselle Delille, artiste de l'Opéra Comique, dans le 2me acte des Diamants de la Couronne ; Étude de Femme; Portrait de Monsieur S... and Portrait de Madame S... ; Miss P. N. J...; étude ; Portrait de Mademoiselle Jeanne Tordeus, du théâtre impérial de l'Odéon ; Portrait de Madame A. Musard ; Portrait de Madame... ; Portrait de Mademoiselle Guerra du Théâtre-Italien and Portrait de Monsieur Saint-Germain du théâtre du Vaudeville ; Portrait de Mademoiselle B. de C... ; Portrait de Madame L. D. R... and Portrait de Monsieur A. L.... Viénot also painted Marie Duplessis. Marie Duplessis was the real-life actress and courtesane on whom Dumas modelled the heroine in his 1848 novel La Dame aux Camélias, on which La Traviata is based. Viénot's portrait of the Emperor Pedro II of Brazil is in the Imperial Museum in Brazil. Also in Brazil is his Retrato de Menina which hangs in the Museu Regional de São João del-Rei. Viénot identified himself in the Salon catalogues as a pupil of Guérin and Hersent. Paulin Guérin, official painter to the royal family and aristocracy in the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X, was "one of the most prominent portrait painters of the Restoration". Louis Hersent was a gold medallist at the Salon of 1806, elected a member of the Institut 1822, and appointed professor at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts1825. Viénot did some portraits for different Spanish families established in South America during that period. A sample of them are the portraits he did for the family González del Collado.
