Bernard Louis Borione was a painter of religious figure genre* and interior scenes. He was born in Paris in 1865. He was a pupil of his father, Guillaume-Marie Borione (1816-1887) a French genre and portrait painter, and of his mother, the artist Evariste Luminais 1822-1896, a historical and genre painter. "Under their tuition, he developed his ability for finely painted works with highly detailed figures and interiors.

Genre painting had made a comeback in 19th century France and so had the trend for anti-clericalism. Borione was part of a group of painters that depicted domestic antics of members of the higher echelons of the Roman Catholic Church, especially Cardinals in elegant dress a...