Jules Emile Saintin entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts at the age of sixteen. He studied with Michel Martin Dr"lling, Edouard Picto, and Achille Jean-Baptiste Leboucher. Within three years, the young artist began to exhibit at the Paris Salon. By 1856, Saintin was living in New York City where he remained until 1863 when he returned to Paris. He made at least one visit to Rome in 1864, but remained a resident of Paris until his death.
Saintin, known primarily for his portrait and genre scenes, began exhibiting at the Academy in 1857 and continued to show regularly until 1865. In addition to exhibiting at the NAD, Saintin showed at the Paris Salon throughout his career, and continued to be represented in American exhibitions after his return to Europe including the Boston Athenaeum, the Artist's Fund Society, the Cincinnati Industrial Exposition, and the Chicago World's Columbia Exposition. He served on the jury for French entries to the Philadelphia Centennial and showed at the 1878 Paris International Exhibition.
Saintin's obituary recorded in the NAD Council Minutes of May 9, 1985, details his professional success and points out the close tie the French artist felt to the Academy which fostered his talent during his stay in America:
Jules Emile Saintin . . . received medals in France in 1866, 1870, and in Munich in 1883. He was decorated with the Legion of Honor in 1877.
That Mons. Saintin was proud of his membership in the Academy was shown by his bequest to this Institution of all his pictures and studio effects of which he died possessed.
The expense of the inheritance tax with costs of transportation etc. induced the Council to decline the legacy, with the request however, that Mr. F.A. Bridgeman, NA be permitted to select such pictures and drawings for the Academy as may best represent Mons. Saintin on our walls, and this request was cheerfully granted.
