Eugène Burnand

Eugène Burnand's painting of the disciples Peter and John running to Christ's tomb on Easter morning was bought by the French state at the Salon of 1898 and became a widely reproduced religious image. It now hangs in the Musée d'Orsay.

Burnand, born in Moudon in Switzerland in 1850, first studied architecture in Zurich before turning to painting, in Geneva and then in Paris under Jean-Léon Gérôme. His breakthrough came with illustrations for Mireille, the Provençal epic poem by Frédéric Mistral, and he painted rural life before moving more and more to religious subjects. His last project was a series of more than 100 pastel and pencil portraits of Allied soldiers of the First World War, most of which went to the Legion of Honour museum in Paris.