Joseph-Claude Bail was born during a period of intense disagreement in the Parisian art world.

For several years, the juries of the Salon had rejected the works of many progressive artists; printmaking was attempting to establish itself as a true form of art; the group of painters from Barbizon was challenging the tradition of historical landscapes with its views of the modern countryside, and realism had existed for decades, giving rise to combative figures like Gustave Courbet. Yet, not all artists could be said to belong to this modern vision of the 19th century.

Many artists found prestige and public recognition, both at the Salons and with the public, with works that drew on styles and traditions of the past, influenced by the "little masters" of 17th-century Holland and the traditions of 18th-century France. Joseph Bail belongs to this group.

He was not an artist who sought to align himself with the growing stylistic anarchy of the late 19th century, but rather an artist who carefully examined the changing needs of his patrons and measured the underlying social trends of the time. Bail continued the tradition of realism embodied by Théodule Ribot and François Bonvin and received positive reactions that reinforced the ongoing respect for scenes reminiscent of daily life during these early years in France.

Joseph Bail was born on January 22, 1862, in Limonest, Rhône, France. His father, Jean-Antoine Bail, was a genre painter by training, heavily influenced by Dutch masters, who focused on depicting scenes of everyday life. It is clear that Joseph, like his brother Frank, followed in his father's footsteps, as he too would be influenced by these artists despite the new interests in subjects and representation during this period in France.

In a period of increasing modernity and industrialization, Bail's paintings glorified the old ways of life in France and found a sympathetic audience among bourgeois patrons. Probably from a young age, Joseph's initial artistic training began with his father, who instilled in him a respect for French painters of the 18th century such as Jean-Siméon Chardin and the Dutch masters and encouraged him to see their works at the Louvre. The three family members, Jean-Antoine, Franck, and Joseph, all being artists, the Bail family represents one of the few remaining associations of familial painters of the realistic tradition that persisted in the latter half of the 19th century. They were often found side by side at the annual Salons, exhibiting works that shared similar qualities in their subject matter. After starting his training under his father, Bail studied, presumably between 1879 and 1880, in the studio of Jean-Léon Gérôme, a prominent painter and teacher of the time. This period of apprenticeship was short-lived because by 1882, Gérôme was no longer listed in the Salon catalogs as Bail's teacher, perhaps because Gérôme's choice of subjects differed quite radically from those of his father and those that Bail would pursue for much of his career. Just after his sixteenth birthday, Bail made his debut at the Salon of 1878, alongside his father and brother, with a Still Life. The tradition of still life in France had been revitalized by the work of Jean-Siméon Chardin in the 18th century, and still lifes continued to be a major interest for many artists, with many focusing primarily on this type of painting. They were an important element in Bail's work, and many of his genre scenes also featured arrangements of still lifes in the painting, even when they were not the central focus. If still lifes dominated Bail's early works exhibited at the Salon, he expanded his early themes to include countryside scenes, animals, and genre paintings.

As his style progressed, he showed a greater affinity with the work of his father and the masters of Chardin and the Dutch, choosing to depict interiors of rooms lit by a strong source of light. By recalling these masters of the past and this type of painting, Bail appealed to the expanding middle class, as his work referenced highly esteemed earlier painters.

Emmanuel Bénézit wrote about Bail and his interiors, that: He excels in creating throughout his painting a very lively bright light due to the brilliance of some bright point or to the direct projection of the external daylight... it is certainly the expression of an original and rather harmonious art. His technique is very delicate and his coloring accurate. The composition of his picture, always elegant, is skillfully handled.

Bail regularly presented himself at the Salons, and towards the end of his career, he was "hors concours," meaning he was exempt from submitting his works for jury approval. He was awarded in 1885 (honorable mention), 1886 (third-class medal), 1887 (second-class medal), 1889 Exposition Universelle (silver medal), 1900 Exposition Universelle (gold medal), and 1902 (honorary medal). He was also appointed Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur in 1900 and was a member of the Société des Artistes Français.

He died on November 26, 1921.