Bernard Romain Julien was a French printmaker, lithographer, painter and draftsman. Julian was born in Bayonne on November 16, 1802. Between 1815 and 1818 he trained in painting in his hometown and then moved to Paris, where from 1822 he studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Paris under the leadership of Antoine Jean Gross. Between 1833 and 1850 he exhibited a number of paintings and drawings at the Paris Salon, but mainly on lithographs, for which he was also famous. He produced lithographs by other artists, such as George Henry Hall's A Drawing Tutorial. In 1840, he published tude à deux crayons (Study of Two Crayons).
Edgar Allan Poe described Julian's work in Randall's Cottage: "One of them is a scene of oriental luxury, or rather a glamorous scene; the other is a carnival work, which is very lively; and the third is the head of a Greek woman—a face so sacred and beautiful, but with an expression so provocative and uncertain, that it has never caught my attention before." "
In 1854, based on Gilbert Stewart, he painted a full-breasted portrait of George Washington, a lithograph that was collected by Mount Vernon's art collection. In 1866, he returned to his hometown, where he taught painting until his death on December 3, 1871.
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