Background
Jean-Léon Gérôme was born on May 11, 1824 in Vesoul, Haute-Saône, France. He was the first born son of Pierre Gérôme, a goldsmith, and Claude Françoise Mélanie Vuillemot.
Jean-Léon Gérôme was born on May 11, 1824 in Vesoul, Haute-Saône, France. He was the first born son of Pierre Gérôme, a goldsmith, and Claude Françoise Mélanie Vuillemot.
At school in Vesoul, Jean-Léon Gérôme was a studious child earning high grades. In his final year he received first prize in chemistry, an honourable mention in physics, and another prize in oil painting. His art training was with Claude-Basile Cariage at that time. His schooling was completed in 1840.
Jean-Léon Gérôme went to Paris in 1840 where he studied under Paul Delaroche, whom he accompanied to Italy in 1843-1844. However, taken by a fever, he was forced to return to Paris in 1844. On his return, he followed, like many other students of Delaroche, into the atelier of Charles Gleyre and studied there for a brief time. He then attended the École des Beaux-Arts. In 1846 he tried to enter the prestigious Prix de Rome, but failed in the final stage because his figure drawing was inadequate.
Jean-Léon Gérôme became famous for his painting "The Cock Fight" which he sent to the Salon of 1847. His success was due not to any artistic quality, but rather to his subject matter-stories from ancient mythology and French history, filled with erotic or obscene undertones and anecdotal features.
In 1849, he produced the paintings "Michelangelo" (also called "In his studio") and "A portrait of a Lady" (Musée Ingres, Montauban). In 1851, Gérôme decorated a vase, later offered by Emperor Napoleon III of France to Prince Albert, now part of the Royal Collection at St. James's Palace, London. He exhibited "Drunken Bacchus and Cupid", "Greek Interior" and "Souvenir d'Italie" in 1851; "Paestum" in 1852; and "An Idyll" in 1853.
In 1852, Gérôme received a commission by Alfred Emilien Comte de Nieuwerkerke, "Surintendant des Beaux-Arts" to the court of Napoleon III, for the painting of a large historical canvas, the "Age of Augustus". Thanks to a considerable down payment, he was able to travel in 1853 to Constantinople, together with the actor Edmond Got. That was the first of several travels to the East: in 1854 he made another journey to Greece and Turkey and the shores of the Danube, where he was present at a concert of Russian conscripts, making music under the threat of a lash.
In 1854, Gérôme completed another important commission of decorating the Chapel of St. Jerome in the church of St. Séverin in Paris.
A trip to Egypt in 1856 introduced an exotic element into his painting, for example "Prayer in the Mosque of ʿAmr, Old Cairo" (circa 1860). During the last 25 years of his life he concentrated on sculpture. His first work was a large bronze statue of a gladiator holding his foot on his victim, shown to the public at the Exposition Universelle of 1878.
As a teacher at the École des Beaux-Arts between 1864 and 1904, he counted among his many pupils Odilon Redon and the American artists Thomas Eakins and J. Alden Weir.
A highly successful artist, Gérôme exerted great influence in the Paris art world. He was exceedingly hostile to the Impressionists and, as late as 1893, urged the government to refuse a bequest of 65 of their works.
Jean-Léon Gérôme died on January 10, 1904 in his atelier in Paris, France. He was found in front of a portrait of Rembrandt and close to his own painting "Truth Coming Out of Her Well". At his own request, he was given a simple burial service without flowers. But the Requiem Mass given in his memory was attended by a former president of the Republic, most prominent politicians, and many painters and writers. Gérôme was buried at the Cimetiere de Montmartre in Paris, France.
Louis XIII
Interior of a Mosque
Moorish Bath
Drunken Bacchus and Cupid
Portrait of Mr. Leblond
The Arab and his Steed
The Prisoner
Michelangelo
General Bonaparte with his Military Staff in Egypt
Lion Snapping at a Butterfly
The Terrace of the Seraglio
Reception of Le Grand Condé at Versailles
The Negro Master of the Hounds
The Odysseus
Pygmalion and Galatea
Pifferari
Arab Girl with Waterpipe
Summer Afternoon on a Lake
Diogenes
Nude Woman
Greek Interior
Dying Eagle of Waterloo
Excursion of the Harem
Arnauts of Cairo at the Gate of Bab-el-Nasr
The Flight into Egypt
Portrait of a Cactus Collector
The Bathers
Retiarius
The Pain
Portrait of a Lady
Bacchus and Anacreon love
Bathsheba
Study of a Dog
A Hot Day in Cairo (front of the Mosque)
Phryne before the Areopagus
Entry of the Christ in Jerusalem
Bust of Paul Reclus
Slave Market in Rome
Egyptian Water Carrier
Eminence Grise - François Leclerc du Tremblay (detail)
An Arab and His Dog
Nominor Leo
Black Bashi Bazouk
Sarah Bernhardt
A Japanese Imploring a Divinity
Old Woman with a Pipe (sketch)
Cairene Horse Dealer
Recreation in a Russian Camp
Julius Caesar and Staff
Amédée Thierry
Napoleon in Egypt
Painting Breathes Life into Sculpture
The Colossus of Memnon
The Oracle of Snakes
Head of a Peasant of the Roman Campagna
A Muezzin Calling from the Top of a Minaret the Faithful to Prayer
The Conspirators, Presented at the Salon
Madeleine Juliette Gerome and Her Dolls
A Roman Slave Market
The Tryst
The Call to Prayer
The Tryst
Amehs Playing Chess in a Café
Tanagra
A View of Cairo
Purchase of a Slave
Leaving the Mosque
Guard
Portrait of Mille Durand
Prayer in the Mosque
Portrait of a Young Boy
Interior of a Mosque
A Harem
The Duel after the Masquerade
King Candaules of Lydia
Arab Frightening Larks Away (unfinished)
A Seated Female Nude
Solomon's Wall, Jerusalem
The Carpet Merchant
Lion
Gérôme executing the Gladiators
The Standard Bearer
Camels at the Fountain
The Snake Charmer
The Gladiators
Young Greeks Encouraging Cocks to Fight
Polyphemus
Arab Encampment
The Beggar
The Tulip Folly
Gladiator Playing the Trumpet
Prayer in Cairo
Socrates seeking Alcibiades in the House of Aspasia
Thebes Colosseums, Memnon and Sesostris (study)
The Virgin the Infant Jesus and St. John
The Age of Augustus the Birth of Christ
Pygmalion and Galatea
The End of the Corrida
Prayer in the House of an Arnaut Chief
Markos Botsaris
Dispute Arabs
Frederick the Great
Albanian Warior
Arms Dealer in Cairo
Prayer in the Mosque
Funeral Wake
Dante (He Hath Seen Well)
A Bashi Bazouk
Bashi-Bazouk and his Dog
Sword Dancer
Selene
An Arab Caravan
The Dance of the Almeh
A Café in Cairo
Bisharin Warrior
Pho Xai
The Field of Rest Cemetary of the Green Mosque
Pifferari
Entry of the Christ in Jerusalem
The Duc de la Rochefoucauld-Doudeauville
The Entry of the Bull
Anacreon
A Bath, Woman Bathing Her Feet
Bonaparte Before the Sphinx
Dancer with Tambourine
The Bath
Quaerens Quem Devoret
Pelt Merchant of Cairo
Greek youths who are being converted to Islam - Young Greeks at the Mosque
The Draught Players
The Almeh with Pipe
Public Prayer in the Mosque of Amr, Cairo
Souvenir of Achéres
Love the Conqueror
Caesar Crossing the Rubicon
The Hookah Lighter
The Dead Caesar
Self-Portrait
Arnaut Blowing Smoke at the Nose of His Dog
Dancer with an Apple
Corinth
Arabs Crossing the Desert
Working in Marble, or The Artist Sculpting Tanagra
Mirmillon
General Bonaparte with his Military Staff in Egypt
A Collaboration
Aimé Morot
Prayer at the Mausoleum for Sultan Qayut
The Bacchante
A Woman in a Veil
Prayer in the Mosque
A Street Scene in Cairo
Arnaut of Cairo
Bathers by the Edge of a River
Egyptian Recruits Crossing the Desert
Moses on Mount Sinai
Heads of the Rebel Beys
Napoleon III, Eugenie and their Son for Adoption Siamese Ambassadors (detail)
An Arab Caravan outside a Fortified Town, Egypt
Harem Women Feeding Pigeons in a Courtyard
Arnautm Smoking
Night
Painting Breathes Life into Sculpture
Bathing Women
After the Bath
Bathsheba
Bashi-Bazouk Singing
Cleopatra and Caesar
The Day of Judgement
Sketch for the Excursion of the Harem
Sais and His Donkey
Saint Vincent of Paule
Portrait of a Roman Woman
Pollice Verso
Portrait of Marianne Elisa Birch
A Soul Taken away by an Angel
Portrait of a Lady2
Dante and Virgil in Hell
Cave Canem
Slave Market
The Christian Martyr's Last Prayer
The Birth of Venus
Nude from behind (Study for King Candaule)
Mufti Reading in His Prayer Stool
Portrait of a Lady
The Large Pool of Bursa
Woman from Cairo Smoking a Cigarette
Louis XIV and Moliere
The Death of Caesar
The Truth at the bottom of a Well
Bashi-Bazouk Chieftain
Consummatum est
Whirling Dervishes
Anacreon, Love and Bacchus
Eminence Grise - François Leclerc du Tremblay
A Chat by the Fireside
The Carpet Merchant of Cairo
Pifferari
Portrait of Eduoard Delessert
Nude Girl
Gérôme was a vehement opponent of the Impressionist movement in painting.
Quotations: "I begin to have enough of life. I've seen too much misery and misfortune in the lives of others. I still see it every day, and I'm getting eager to escape this theatre."
Gérôme was elected, on his fifth attempt, a member of the Institut de France in 1865. In 1869, he was elected an honorary member of the British Royal Academy. He was also a member of the Ligue de la Patrie Française, Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts and American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
One of his students, the American, Stepen Wilson Van Shaick, commented that Gérôme was "merciless in judgement" yet possessed a "singular magnetism".
Jean-Léon Gérôme married Marie Goupil (1842-1912). They had four daughters and one son. His son, Jean Gérôme, who, after attempting a career as a painter, died of consumption in 1891 at the age of 27. The daughters all married prominent men and gave him many grandchildren.
Upon his marriage Jean-Léon Gérôme moved to a house in the Rue de Bruxelles, close to the music hall Folies Bergère. He expanded it into a grand house with stables with a sculpture studio below and a painting studio on the top floor.