Galerie Paul Prouté

Born in Vesoul in 1824, Jean-Léon Gérôme came to Paris in June 1840, aged just seventeen, with the ambition of becoming a painter. Trained in Paul Delaroche’s studio, the young artist also attended the École des Beaux-Arts. A major representative of academic painting during the Second Empire and a leader of the neo-Greek movement, Gérôme painted a large number of scenes borrowed from Antiquity, in which he reproduced the archaeological decor with precision. He was also fascinated by the Near East, where his regular travels inspired numerous canvases, always characterised by the extreme descriptive meticulousness that was his hallmark.