Victor ORSEL, full name André Jacques Victor ORSEL, is a French painter born in Oullins on May 25, 1795 and died in Paris on November 1, 1850. Victor ORSEL was born into a family of old bourgeoisie from Dauphiné, from Jean ORCEL (1612-1682), merchant, bourgeois from Monêtier-les-Bains. Jacques (I) ORSEL (1706-1789), was a merchant in Lyon, hardware merchant. Jacques (II) ORSEL (1750-1800), was a merchant, manufacturer of gauzes in Lyon. He is the father of Victor ORSEL, who remained without alliance or posterity. Jacques (III) ORSEL (1784-1868), the elder brother of Victor, was mayor of Tarare, then of Oulins, general councilor of the Rhône department. Pierre-Jean ORSEL (1791-1858), another brother, was a fabulist writer. Victor ORSEL was successively the student of Pierre REVOIL at the Imperial School of Fine Arts in Lyon in 1809 and of Pierre-Narcisse GUERIN in Paris. He followed the latter to Rome when he was appointed director of the Medici villa and spent eight years there, from 1822 to 1830 where he worked in the entourage of Johann Friedrich OVERBECK and the group of Nazarenes, and copied the Italian primitives, this which marks his art with an archaic bias. In 1823, he sent to Lyon the painting entitled "La Charité et les Pauvres", which won the gold medal at the exhibition of the year. Back in France, he accepted from the city of Paris the decoration of the Notre-Dame de-Lorette church with his friend Alphonse PERIN, both taking Michel DUMAS as assistant. For the space allotted to him, he chose to illustrate the Litanies of the Virgin, divided into sixty paintings. He will devote the last seventeen years of his life to it. His most famous works are "Le Bien et le Mal" (Lyon Museum of Fine Arts) and the "Vœu du choléra", adorning the top of the main door of the Notre-Dame de Fourvière basilica in Lyon. He trained many students, including Louis JANMOT (1814-1892), François-Frédéric GROBON (1815-1901), Gabriel TYR (1817-1868) and Louis Stanislas FAIVRE-DUFFER (1818-1897).