Jacques Emile Edouard Brandon attented the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1849 and received several medals in 1865 and 1867. Known for his portraying of Biblical and traditional Jewish themes, he also painted genre pieces, historical paintings and landscapes. Brandon was particularly interested in capturing Jewish life. He was fully ensconced in the French art world, closely associating with and influenced by such famous artists as Camille Corot and Edgar Degas. Indeed, Brandon exhibited at the very first and very controversial Impressionist exhibition of 1874 (La Salon des Refusée).

Brandon was fascinated by the architectonic and aesthetic power of the synagogue and his imposing scenes illustrate the synagogue's physical centrality to Jewish life. Brandon was the first Jewish artist to consider the synagogue not just as a place of religious prayer and meditation but also as a temple of aesthetic worship and experience.

Brandon also had close ties with the painters of the Barbizon school who made their plein air paintings in the surroundings of Barbizon and Fontainebleau. This new generation of nineteenth century painters, following Romanticism and preceding Impressionism, wanted to part with academic traditions and sought to paint nature as they experienced it.

E. Glassman, M.F. Symmes, Cliché-verre (exh.cat.), Detroit, 1980