Aimé-Jules Dalou [also known as Jules Dalou] was born in Paris, France on 31 December 1838. After attending the Petit École in Paris from 1852 to 1854, he studied in the atelier of Francisque Duret (1804-1865) at the École des Beaux-Arts from 1854 to 1857. He subsequently worked as a sculptor and in 1861 began exhibiting at the Paris Salon. Following the Paris Commune in 1871 he moved to London where he remained until 1879. During this period he taught sculpture at the National Art Training Schools in South Kensington from 1877 to 1879 and and the South London Technical School on 1879. and worked on a commission received from Queen Victoria to create a memorial to her dead children for the Royal Chapel, Windsor Castle. Salou returned to Paris in 1879 and during the 1880s and 1890s worked on a number of commissions for public monuments and statues, notable among which was the Le Triomphe de la République (1899) for the place de la Nation in Paris.