Why Gabriel Auguste Emmanuel Faraill matters
Gabriel Auguste Emmanuel Faraill was a nineteenth-century French sculptor whose surviving public and museum works document a regional Salon career rather than a headline market. He matters to Masterworks Academy as a case study in provenance-first research: a documented, museum-held body of work with almost no visible auction footprint, where municipal archives and Salon records carry more evidentiary weight than price data.
- Born
- 1837-12-05, Saint-Marsal, Pyrenees-Orientales, France
- Nationality
- French
- Media
- Sculpture
- Movement
- 19th-century French academic sculpture
- Education
- Pension-funded student of the city of Perpignan and the department of Pyrenees-Orientales; studied in Paris under sculptors Oliva and Farochon. No formal school name or exact years documented.
- Signature motifs
- Marble genre figures, Civic monuments
By the numbers
- 1837 to 1892LifespanBorn Saint-Marsal, died Paris
- 1866 to 1891Paris SalonRecurring exhibitor
- Musee Hyacinthe-Rigaud, PerpignanMuseum collectionHolds a plaster cast of the 1890 Hyacinthe Rigaud monument and other works by the artist
- Not publicly confirmedAuction recordNo verified sale price located as of data_as_of
Biography
Gabriel Auguste Emmanuel Faraill was born on 5 December 1837 in Saint-Marsal, in the Pyrenees-Orientales region of France. He trained as a pension-funded student, supported by the city of Perpignan and the department of Pyrenees-Orientales, and studied in Paris under sculptors identified in period records only as Oliva and Farochon. No formal academy name or exact years of study are documented.
He exhibited at the Paris Salon from 1866 to 1891. His best-documented surviving work is a monumental bronze statue of the painter Hyacinthe Rigaud, unveiled in Perpignan in July 1890 by Leon Bourgeois, then Minister of Public Instruction. The bronze was melted down in 1943, but a plaster cast and other works by the artist are preserved at the Musee Hyacinthe-Rigaud in Perpignan.
He died on 10 March 1892, according to a detailed regional biographical source; French Wikipedia separately records that he died at his home on the rue Boissonade in the 14th arrondissement of Paris. The Musee d'Orsay's artist directory and the French Wikipedia entry corroborate the year and the city of his death; the exact day is documented only in the regional source.
Critical reception
No verifiable verbatim critic commentary from named critics in major outlets was located for Faraill. His reception is better documented through institutional and civic record than through art criticism: inclusion in the Musee d'Orsay's artist directory as a documented sculptor, a quarter-century run as a Paris Salon exhibitor from 1866 to 1891, and a public commission from the city of Perpignan point to a working, regionally recognized career rather than a critically debated one.
Market
No verified public auction record for a work by Gabriel Auguste Emmanuel Faraill was located in the available research as of the date of this profile. A Sotheby's 19th and 20th Century Sculpture digital catalogue references a life-size marble Young Girl attributed to Gabriel-Auguste-Emmanuel Faraill, cataloged with an estimate of GBP 80,000 to 100,000 for a sale window in July 2022, but the realized sale price and exact sale date were not confirmed in accessible sources. Collectors should treat this as an artist with a documented museum and civic-commission record but a thin, largely unconfirmed secondary market.
Selected exhibitions
| Years | Exhibition | Venues |
|---|---|---|
| 1866 to 1891 | Paris Salon (Societe des Artistes Francais) | Paris Salon, Paris |
Museum collections
- Musee Hyacinthe-Rigaud, Perpignan
Authentication and provenance
No catalogue raisonne.
No catalogue raisonne has been confirmed. The most detailed reference is a regional monograph on the artist, cited in Saint-Marsal biographical sources under the title 'Gabriel Augustin Emmanuel Farrail, sculpteur catalan' (author not independently confirmed), and the Musee d'Orsay maintains a documentation file in its sculpture section. Works are otherwise traced through Paris Salon records and the Perpignan museum's holdings.
Primary reference: https://www.musee-orsay.fr/fr/ressources/repertoire-artistes-personnalites/gabriel-auguste-emmanuel-faraill-12113
What collectors should know
Faraill's market is essentially undocumented at auction as of this writing, and no catalogue raisonne exists. The most reliable reference points are Paris Salon records, the Musee Hyacinthe-Rigaud's holdings in Perpignan, and a regional monograph on the artist. No current gallery or estate representation was identified in the available sources. Any offered work should be checked against the known, museum-held body of work, principally the plaster cast of the Hyacinthe Rigaud monument and other pieces held at the Musee Hyacinthe-Rigaud in Perpignan, and provenance should be weighted more heavily than market comparables given the near-total absence of verified sale data.
Further reading and resources
Data current as of 2026-07-18.
