J. André Castaigne

Born in Angoulême, France, in 1861, Jean Alexandre Michel André Castaigne trained in Paris and studied under well-known academic painters including Jean-Léon Gérôme and Alexandre Cabanel. He built a career as both a painter and an engraver, but he became especially admired as an illustrator.

Castaigne worked during a rich period for illustrated books and magazines, and his pictures appeared in major publications on both sides of the Atlantic. He is often noted for vivid historical scenes, including a series on Alexander the Great, and for illustrations connected with the first modern Olympic Games. His name is also associated with early illustrated editions of The Phantom of the Opera.

Today, he is remembered as one of the artists who helped define the look of late 19th- and early 20th-century literary illustration: polished, dramatic, and full of movement.