We know very little about the French painter and illustrator Edmond Malassis. He grew up in Paris, and was a pupil of the prolific symbolist painter Gustave Moreau, but Malassis preferred watercolours and became primarily an illustrator, though he did paint a number of landscapes.

Among other works, Malassis illustrated Théodore de Banville’s Gringoire, Honoré de Balzac’s Les joyeuzetés du Roy Loys le Unziesme, Voltaire’s Candide, and Jean de la Fontaine’s Fables choisies. In 1935 he exhibited his paintings and illustrations at the Galerie de l’Écale in the Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris.

As far as we know he never married or had children, and died at home in Paris’s 7th arrondissement.