You are here:  Home › Artists › Gros

Antoine-Jean Gros

Born: Paris, 16 March 1771
Died: Paris, 25 June 1835
Nationality: French
Background: 

son of miniature painters Jean-Antoine Gros and Madeleine-Cécile Durand

Studies: 

parents; often visited Elisabeth Vigée LeBrun’s studio; with Jacques-Louis David (1785-93); Académie Royale (1787-93)

Career: 

1792 – finalist in Prix de Rome competition with Antiochus Attempting to Prevent Eleazar from Eating an Impure Dish (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Saint-Lo)

1793 –French Academy in Rome closes due to anti-French demonstrations; Gros and Anne-Louis Girodet lodge together in Genoa

1796 –meets Napoleon and Josephine; begins series of propagandistic Bonaparte commissions; Napoleon appoints Gros to committee inspecting art works from conquered cities for inclusion in the Louvre

1801-1835 – exhibits regularly at Paris Salon

1809 – marries painter Augustine Dufresne

1814 – Bourbon restoration; appointed Portrait Painter to Louis XVIII; paintings of Napoleon removed from public exhibition

1815 – Gros becomes member of Institut de France

1824 – ennobled (baron) by Charles X based on frescoes for Panthéon cupola of Clovis, Charlemagne, Louix IX, Louis XVIII (begun 1812)

1830 – July Revolution; Gros's Napoleon paintings return to public view

1835 – Gros drowns himself in the Seine river following negative reception at 1838 Salon

Students

Antoine-Louis Barye, Richard Parkes Bonington, Thomas Couture, Paul Delaroche, and Paul Huet

Travels 

Genoa (1793-1800), also visits Florence and Milan

Commissions from: 

Napoleon Bonaparte, Louis XVIII (King of France), Charles X (King of France)

Important Artworks: 

Bonaparte on the Bridge at Arcole, 1801  (Château de Versailles)

Battle of the Pyramids, 1810 (Château de Versailles)

Bacchus Consoling Ariadne on the Island of Naxos, 1821 (National  Gallery, Ottawa)