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Jean-Léon Gérôme

Born: Vésoul, Haute-Saone, 11 May 1824
Died: Paris, 10 January 1904
Nationality: French
Background: 

son of a goldsmith

Studies: 

with Paul Delaroche (1840-43, Paris); with Charles Gleyre (1844); Ecole des Beaux- Arts

Career: 

1846 – begins exhibiting at Paris Salon; fails to win Prix de Rome

1847 – exhibitsThe Cockfight at Salon; Théophile Thoré and Théophile Gautier write positive reviews

1848 – Anacreon, Bacchus and Amor (Musée Augustins, Toulouse) bought by French State

1855 –exhibits Recreation in the Camp (private collection) at Exposition universelle (Paris)

1863 – appointed professor at Ecole des Beaux-Arts

1864 – elected to Institut de France

1878 – exhibits large bronze gladiator at the Exposition universelle (Paris)

Travels 

Italy (1843); Constantinople (1853); Egypt (1856)

Commissions from: 

Comte de Nieuwerkerke; Napoleon III; Prince Napoleon-Jérôme Bonaparte; French government

Important Artworks: 

The Cockfight, 1846 (Louvre, Paris)

The Snake Charmer, c. 1870 (Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown,MA)

Interior of a Mosque, 1890s (University of Rochester, NY)

Pygmalion and Galatea, c. 1890 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)

 

See also Nadar's photographic portrait of Gérôme,  c. 1900