Victor Gabriel Gilbert was a French painter mostly known for his Parisian scenes and portraying market scenes there. He was born February 13, 1847 in Paris, just shortly before the 1848 Revolution which brought about reforms in the Salon system that allowed more artists to introduce new work. Since Gilbert’s parents did not have enough money to send him to the École des Beaux-Arts for training, the typical route for aspiring artists, he instead began working as an apprentice at thirteen to Eugène Adam, a painter decorator. At night he would also take lessons at the École de la Ville de Paris, which was his only form of official artistic training. As many of the École des Beaux-Arts ateliers relied on a more rigidly academic form of training and style of painting, his lack of extensive studies may have forced him to look towards daily life for his inspiration.