Émile-Louis Truffot

Truffot was born in Valenciennes, France, in July 1843; no source consulted for this profile records the exact day. He trained in Paris as a pupil of the sculptor Francisque Duret at the École des Beaux-Arts, though the specific years of study are not documented in the available sources. In 1887 he exhibited a sculpture of Jupille with the dog at the Paris Salon, the same subject Louis Pasteur had made famous through his rabies treatment. A bronze replica of the group was installed at the Institut Pasteur, which opened in late 1888. Truffot is also credited with the Monument à Bougainville on the façade of the Hôtel de Ville de Paris. He died in Paris, in the 11th arrondissement, in October 1895; the exact day of death is likewise not documented in the available sources, and one secondary dealer source instead gives 26 December 1896, a conflict that has not been resolved against primary civil records. He is buried at the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, in the 15th division.

Truffot does not have a developed critical literature in the usual art-historical sense. The most substantive discussion of his work found for this profile comes from medical history rather than art criticism: historian Bert Hansen, writing for the American Osler Society, discusses Truffot's Salon sculpture of Jupille and the dog as part of the visual culture that grew up around Louis Pasteur's rabies treatment. No verbatim review or critical assessment of Truffot's work by a named critic in a major art outlet could be confirmed from the sources consulted.

According to the market database MutualArt, the highest price recorded for Truffot since 2011 is USD 114,000, for Amazone Lybienne (Libyan Amazon), reported sold at Sotheby's New York in 2025. The exact sale date is not given in that source, and no second database or auction-house archive was found to independently confirm the figure, so it should be read as a single-source data point rather than a fully cross-verified record. Bronzes attributed to him surface at regional and specialist auction houses under several name variants, including Emile-Louis Truffot, Emile Louis Truffot, Louis Truffot, and the signature form E. Truffot, and some lots are explicitly catalogued as later "after Truffot" casts rather than period examples, for instance a Hunting Dog Retrieving a Duck bronze offered at Leland Little Auctions in early 2026. Collectors should treat any claimed price history for this artist with caution until it can be checked against a specific, dated sale.

Because no catalogue raisonné exists for Truffot, attribution rests on signature, foundry marks, and comparison with the two documented public commissions, the Institut Pasteur bronze and the Hôtel de Ville monument. Buyers should expect the artist's name to appear inconsistently across dealer and auction listings, as Emile-Louis Truffot, Emile Louis Truffot, Louis Truffot, or the signed form E. Truffot, and should confirm which form a given cataloguer intends before assuming continuity of provenance. Given the thin and largely single-source documentation of his auction history, including the reported USD 114,000 high, collectors should independently verify any price or condition claims for a specific lot rather than relying on a general reputation for the artist.