The art critic Théophile Thoré-Bürger described how Gigoux’s main quality was “to unite those around him” and “even during his early years [he] was already the centre of attention.”

He was born on 6th January 1806 in Besançon, the son of a blacksmith. An accident in childhood almost lead to the amputation of his leg, later saved by the patient care of his mother.

He decided against becoming a blacksmith. A local miniaturist taught him the rudiments of drawing; the sculptor Félicie de Fauveau (1801-1886) nurtured his interest further. Gigoux described her as “the kindest person in Besançon” and her collection was said to have made him “quiver with joy.”

He won first prize at the free drawing school in Besançon in 1823. Local commissions shielded him from his father's efforts to push him towards a more practical vocation and by 1828 he could afford the move to Paris. He entered the École des Beaux-Arts, exhibited portraits of Delacroix and Delaroche at the Salon of 1833, and invested his prize money from the Salon of 1835 with a uncharacteristic shrewdness for an artist of 29.  

It was around this time that be began collecting the drawings that he hoped would become the basis for a museum in his hometown of Besançon. He acquired nearly 300 from his close friend Delacroix, but sold many of them, to help Balzac’s widow, Ewelina Hańska.  

Though described as “the most famous portrait painter of the age”,  Gigoux is now best known for his relationship with Madame Balzac and the infamous rumour that they were in bed together, when the great novelist was dying in the next room along. It is likely that educated France was unable to forgive this allegation, or to appreciate the portraits of a man who was seen to have wronged the greatest French novelist since Voltaire.