Jean-Léon Gérôme

Jean-Leon Gerome (1824-1904) was a French painter and sculptor who was arguably the most famous living artist by 1880. Born in Vesoul, he studied under Paul Delaroche and traveled to Rome as a teenager. His debut at the Salon in 1847 with The Cock Fight earned him immediate recognition.

Gerome traveled extensively in Egypt and the Middle East, producing Orientalist paintings of mosques, harems, and slave markets that were hugely popular in his time. Works like Pollice Verso (Thumbs Down) inspired the movie Gladiator. He taught at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts for 40 years. Students included Mary Cassatt and Thomas Eakins. In his final decades he turned to polychrome sculpture, applying paint to marble and bronze. Our collection includes 3 works at the Art Institute of Chicago.