Angnste Francois Biard, a French painter, born in Lyons in 1800. He began life as a chorister with a view of connecting himself with the church; but following his artistic bent, he became sufficiently proficient in drawing to secure a professorship on board a frigate bound to the East, and he subsequently travelled in Europe, going north as far as Spitzbergen. In 1859 he went to Brazil, visited other parts of South America and the United States, and in 1865 set out on an expedition round the globe. Among his most renowned earlier pictures are the "Babes in the Wood," "Strolling Comedians," and "A Beggar's Family." His travels suggested to him many themes, among which " A Concert of Fellahs," "White Bears attacking a Boat in Spitzbergen," "The Slave Trade," and "An Aurora Borealis in Spitzbergen" were noted. His "Slaves on Board of a Slaver" was exhibited anew in Paris in 1867. He has also produced "Jane Shore" (1842), "The Bombardment of Bomarsund" (1857), and other historical works; but his reputation with the masses rests upon his sacrificing aesthetical rules for the sake of producing great effects, and chiefly upon his knack in delineating the grotesque characteristics of the lower classes, on account of which Edmond About called him the Paul de Kock of painters, while more fastidious critics deny to him all higher artistic merit.

Among his many amusing productions of the kind are "Honors Easy," " The Family Bath," and "National Guard of the Banlieu;" and among the most recent are "The Bourse of Paris" and "A Provincial Lawsuit" (1863). He enjoys great popularity in France and on the continent, and especially in England, where engravings of his pictures are much in demand. In 1862 he published an illustrated work, Voyage au Bresil. - His wife, Leonie d'Aunet, a dramatic and miscellaneous writer, who accompanied him to Spitzbergen, but from whom he was separated about 1843, has written Voyage d'une femme a Spitz-bergen (1854; 3d ed., 1867).