Jean-LÉon GÉrÔme was born at Vesoul on May 11, 1824. Throughout his life he retained a slight trace of the Franche-ComptÉ accent, which gave a keener relish to his witty anecdotes and piquant retorts.

He belonged to a family holding an honoured place among the bourgeoisie. His excellent biographer, M. Moreau-Vauthier, relates that his grandfather was on the point of taking orders when the Revolution broke out. His father was a watchmaker and goldsmith at Vesoul. As a child, he himself was in delicate health.

Nevertheless, he proved himself a good student at the college in the city of his birth. While there he studied both Greek and Latin. His instructor in drawing, Cariage, having noticed his early efforts, gave him much good advice and encouragement.

At the age of fourteen, he copied a picture by Decamps, which had found its way to Vesoul from Paris. The story goes that his father forthwith favoured the idea that he should take up the vocation of an artist. There is no use in exaggerating. As a matter of fact, his family dreaded the hardships of so hazardous a career. But, upon receiving his bachelor's degree at the age of sixteen, a degree which at that epoch was by no means common, he obtained permission to go to the capital and pursue his studies under the auspices of Paul Delaroche, to whom he was provided with a letter of introduction.

It is pleasant to picture the young man setting forth alone by diligence and applying himself bravely to the task of acquiring talent and renown.

He was most faithful in his attendance at the studio of Delaroche, who, being the son-in-law of Horace Vernet, possessed at that time not only a wide reputation as professor, but also an enormous influence both at the École des Beaux-Arts and at the court of Louis-Philippe.

Delaroche, who has aptly been called the Casimir Delavigne of painting, a romanticist who stopped short of being a revolutionary, parted company with the cold traditionalists of the older school in the profound importance that he attached to accuracy and to the truth and interest of movement.

GÉrÔme was destined to draw his inspiration from analogous principles. While interesting himself profoundly in costumes, in surroundings, in local colour, he always avoided excess and maintained an almost classic restraint even in the most modern of his fantasies.

Delaroche's pupils were a lively set. GÉrÔme found life pleasant in the studio where Cham amused himself by passing himself off upon strangers as "the patron," and where his comrades were such men as Alfred Arago, HÉbert, Hamon, Jalabert, Landelle, Picou, and Yvon.

He won their regard by his flow of spirits and his caustic humour. At this period he supported himself by copying paintings and making drawings for the newspapers; but, although a small monthly income of a hundred francs assured him comparative security, he was uneasy. Although only eighteen, the young man was impatient to show what he could do. He was seeking his path.

He took his first step towards finding it when he accompanied his teacher to Italy after the latter had closed his studio. He remained there for an entire year.

Upon his return, he studied for a time under Gleyre, after which he worked for some months on Delaroche's Bonaparte Crossing the Alps.

In 1847, GÉrÔme made his dÉbut at the Salon with a veritable master-stroke. At an exposition where Delacroix's Shipwrecked Bark and Couture's Roman Orgy monopolized the public gaze, the young artist attracted keen attention by his Young Greeks Engaged in Cock Fighting. ThÉophile Gautier enthusiastically proclaimed the merits of this work, which brought GÉrÔme much valued praise and some influential supporters.

We shall revert again to this significant canvas, which since 1874 has hung in the Luxembourg Museum, and with which the artist, when he later attained full mastery of his art, found all manner of fault.

The first meeting between this painter of twenty-three, upon whom renown had just begun to smile, and Gautier, magnanimous prince of criticism and poetry, took place under circumstances that deserve to be recorded.

GÉrÔme was betaking himself to the offices of the Artiste, at that time presided over by ArsÈne Houssaye; in his hand he held a line drawing of his own recent idyll of classic times. On the staircase he encountered Gautier who had paused there, and who began to talk to him in glowing terms of the Salon and especially of a painting by a newcomer, named GÉrÔme.

"But that is I, myself!" cried the young man with keen emotion, and he showed his drawing to the author of Enamels and Cameos.

Continuing to draw his inspiration from antiquity, he set to work with a stouter heart, in a studio on the Rue de Fleurus, which he shared with Hamon and Picou, associating with artists and with musicians such as Lalo and MembrÉe.

His labours were twice interrupted: first, by an attack of typhoid fever, through which his mother came to nurse him; and secondly, by the Revolution of 1848 when, in compliance with the expressed desire of his comrades, he was appointed adjutant major of the National Guards.

It was about this same period that he received a first class medal and found himself well advanced upon the road to fame.

"I have always had the nomadic instinct," GÉrÔme used to declare, and complacently questioned whether he did not have a strain of gypsy blood among his ancestors. In his notes and souvenirs, which he entrusted to his relative and friend, the painter Timbal, he confesses, along with his various artistic scruples, his passionate love of travel.

He was haunted by a longing to visit Greece, and more especially the Orient, with its marvellous skies, its resplendent colours, its barbaric and motley races of men.

In 1853, in the company of a number of friends, he traversed Germany and Hungary, planning a lengthy visit to Constantinople. Owing to the war, he was forced to cut short his trip at Galatz. But he brought back a collection of energetic and striking sketches of Russian soldiers, which later served good purpose in his Recreation in Camp, Souvenir of Moldavia. And in like manner, in all his distant journeyings, he invariably showed the same eagerness to seize and transcribe his original documents, content to let them speak for themselves, without his having to distort them to fit the special purpose that he had in view.

This painting found a place in the exposition of 1855, together with The Age of Augustus, a notable achievement in which GÉrÔme revealed the measure, if not of his true personality, at least of his lofty conscience and his integrity as an artist enamoured of accuracy and truth, even in the imaginary element inseparable from this type of allegorical apotheosis. Notwithstanding a few dissenting opinions, these two works were judged at their true value, and GÉrÔme received the cross of the Legion of Honour.

At this time he was scarcely more than thirty years old. A most brilliant career henceforth lay open before him.

GÉrÔme remains, beyond question, the unrivalled painter of Egypt, whose aspects, enchanting and sinister alike, he has reproduced in a series of pictures of finished workmanship and vibrant colouring.

It was in 1856 that, together with a few friends, among others Bartholdi, then twenty-two years old, he undertook his long tour through Egypt. To-day, one can go to Cairo or up the Nile as casually as to Nice or Italy and with almost as little trouble. In those days it was not a question of a simple excursion, of which any and every amateur tourist would be capable, but of a veritable expedition.Unforeseen adventures appealed to GÉrÔme, for he was brave, energetic, and eager for new sensations. M. FrÉdÉric Masson, the eminent historian, who was one of his companions through the desert, has since shown him to us, in a series of graphic recollections, as perpetually on his feet, indefatigable, ready to endure any and every vicissitude for the sake of sketching a site or a silhouette.

His stay in Egypt was for GÉrÔme a period of enchantment. He has left, in regard to it, some hasty but expressive notes. He passed four months on the Nile, well filled months, consecrated to fishing, hunting, and painting, all the way from Diametta to Philae. He remained the four succeeding months at Cairo, in an old dwelling that Suliman Pasha rented to the young Frenchmen. "Happy epoch!" wrote the painter, "Care-free, full of hope, and with the future before us. The sky was blue."

He returned to Paris with an ample harvest of sketches, a supply of curious, novel, and striking themes to work up. M. Moreau-Vauthier shows him to us at that period of his existence, full of unflagging energy and pleasant enthusiasm, in the company of Brion, Lambert, Schutzenberger, and Toulmouche,—not to forget his monkey Jacques, who took his place at the family table arrayed in coat and white cravat, but would slink away and hide himself in shame when, as a punishment for some misdeed, they decked him out as a ragpicker.

What jolly parties were held in that "Tea Chest," in which GÉrÔme then had his studio, Rue de Notre-Dame-des-Champs! It was the scene of many a festival, entertainment, and joyous puppet show, attended by spectators such as Rachel (whose portrait GÉrÔme painted in 1861), her sister, George Sand, Baudry, Cabanel, HÉbert, and others.

This was, nevertheless, an epoch of prolific work and constant research. GÉrÔme passed ceaselessly from one type of painting to another; one might say that he rested from his exotic landscapes by evoking, with an ever new lavishness of detail, curious or affecting scenes from Greek and Roman antiquity.

Thus rewards and successes multiplied, and he experienced all the joys of triumph. Already honorary member of the Academy of BesanÇon, he was appointed professor at the École des Beaux-Arts in 1863, and in 1865, member of the Institut, where he succeeded Heim.

Meanwhile he fought a duel with revolvers and was gravely wounded. His mother hastened once again to his bedside and saved his life a second time. Since the ball had passed through his right arm, complications affecting his hand were feared. The artist declared that if necessary he would learn to paint with his left. No sooner was he cured than off he started again, bound for Egypt, whence he passed to Arabia and, more venturesome than ever, continued on his way, as one of his biographers phrased it, "making sketches clear to the summit of Mt. Sinai."

He was destined to make still other journeys, notably that of 1868 in company of Messrs. Bonnet, FrÉdÉric Masson, and Lenoir; and his companions paid tribute to his unfailing spirits and his powers of endurance. But at the age of forty he married. The bride was Mlle. Goupil, daughter of the well-known picture dealer.

He was a thorough man of the world and a favoured guest of the Duc d'Aumale, who appreciated his ready wit and bought his After the Masquerade for the sum of 20,000 francs. In 1865 he received from the Beaux-Arts and the Imperial Household an order for The Reception of the Siamese Ambassadors at Fontainebleau.

GÉrÔme was also numbered among CompiÈgne's habitual visitors, along with Berlioz, Gustave DorÉ, Guillaume, MerimÉe, Viollet-le-Duc, and others. M. Moreau-Vauthier, who with pious zeal has collected the more interesting anecdotes of his life, relates that he had a special gift for organizing charades: he was scene setter and costumer. At Fontainebleau, he took the Empress out alone in a row-boat.Surrounded by devoted friends, such as Augier, Charles Blanc, Dumas, Clery, his brother-in-law, FrÉmiet, GÉrÔme continued his laborious and tranquil life in his vast atelier on the Boulevard de Clichy.

His days were passed in drawing and painting in his canvases. Towards the end of the afternoon he would mount his horse and take a turn in the Bois. He exhibited annually up to the year of the war. After that, he lived in a sort of retirement until 1874, when, after a trip to Algeria with G. Boulanger and Poilpot, he won a medal of honour. A Collaboration, Rex Tibicen (The King Flutist), and His Gray Eminence, exhibited simultaneously, revealed him in full possession of his ingenious and many-sided art.

New and resounding triumphs awaited him at the Exposition Universelle of 1878, where he first revealed himself as a sculptor. As a matter of fact, he had for a long time amused himself at modelling in clay. He used to go to FrÉmiet's studio to do his modelling, and FrÉmiet, by way of exchange, would come to paint in his. His two groups, Gladiators and Anacreon, Bacchus and Cupid, won him a second class medal to take its place beside the medal of honour he had previously received for his paintings. That same year, at the age of fifty-four, he was raised to the rank of Commander. Cham expressed the joy of all his friends by writing to him wittily: "I follow the example of your ribbon, I fall upon your neck."

He was yet to gain still further honours: a first class medal as sculptor, in 1881; to be declared Hors Concours (Not entered for Competition) at the Expositions of 1889 and 1900; and to be named Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour.

From 1880 onward, excepting for a few flying visits to Spain and Italy, GÉrÔme lived at his hotel in Paris, where he kept up a rather lavish establishment, including horses and dogs, up to the time of the successive deaths of his father and his son. It was the latter for whose tomb he carved a touching figure of Grief.

His studio at Bougival held him for many a long day, while the season lasted. While there, he worked with extraordinary assiduity, barely giving himself time enough to appear among his guests and hastily swallow a few mouthfuls of the mid-day meal. He owned at one time another country house at Coulevon, near Vesoul, but this he sold to one of his former pupils, Muenier. He remained none the less the chief pride of his native town, where, even during the artist's life, there was a street bearing the name of GÉrÔme.

His favourite summering place, however, was in the heart of Normandy at Saint-Martin, near to Pont-LÉvÊque, where he possessed a delightful property.

"He is a charming man, of rare integrity and fascination. Very simple, too, like all men of real power, who need not exert themselves in order to prove their strength." It is after this fashion that M. Jules Claretie sums him up in his exquisite study of Contemporary Painters and Sculptors. M. FrÉdÉric Masson, his faithful friend, has drawn the following excellent portrait of GÉrÔme: "A head firmly set upon a long neck, features vigorously modelled in acute angles, sunken cheeks, complexion bronzed, eyes brilliant and strangely black, moustache obstinate and bristling, hair almost kinky, and sprouting in massive clumps, … a straight nose set in a lean face, … figure exceedingly slender and flexible, waist medium, but well modelled."

Such he appears in his painting of himself as a sculptor in his studio, absorbed, in his alert and perennially youthful old age, by his new task of making polychrome statues. M. AimÉ Morot, his son-in-law, has shown him to us in his intimate life, simple, natural, and at one and the same time alert and caustic. We find him also thoroughly alive in the fine bust by Carpeaux and in the medal by Chaplain, now in the Luxembourg.

M. Dagnan-Bouveret saw him under another aspect. In the portrait he has given us, we have the master authoritatively proclaiming his convictions. This distinguished artist, by the way, was formerly a pupil of GÉrÔme's. One day when he was complimenting the latter upon his method of teaching, GÉrÔme replied, in his loud, assertive voice: "When I undertake to do a thing, I do it to the very end. I am a man with a sense of duty."

As professor at the École des Beaux-Arts he continued to fulfil his duty for a period of forty years. While conducting his classes he showed himself grave and stern, even sardonic when so inclined. In front of a canvas too thickly coated, he would exclaim: "The paint shop man will be pleased"; or perhaps he would move around to get a side view and then play upon his words, saying: "How that picture stands out!"

He had a good many foreigners in his studio, Spaniards such as La Gandara, Americans like Bridgman and Harrison, and Russians such as the celebrated and courageous Verestschagen who, according to M. LÉon Coutil, declared, in speaking of GÉrÔme, "Next to my dear Skobelof, he is the most resolute man that I have ever met."

GÉrÔme was frank and unreserved in his opinions. Having become, so to speak, the official representative of French painting, he was exposed to repeated attacks. He did not hesitate to flout unmercifully and to pursue with a veritable hatred such artists as had adopted formulas opposed to his own,—and among them some of the biggest and the ones least open to discussion. M. Besnard, who was not a pupil of his, nevertheless owed him his Prix de Rome.

Many were the circumstances under which he showed his energetic firmness; for example, when the Prince de la Moskowa wished to fix a quarrel on him and prevent him from exhibiting The Death of Mareschal Ney, he evoked this noble declaration from GÉrÔme: "The painter has his rights as much as the historian."

And when a prominent politician criticised the official curriculum without proposing anything to take its place, it was, according to M. Moreau-Vauthier, again GÉrÔme who replied: "Gentlemen, it is easier to be an incendiary than a fireman!"

This firmness, however, did not prevent him, so this same biographer points out, from being sensitive to such a degree that he could not bear to watch a cat of FrÉmiet's preparing to devour a nest of sparrows. He used to bring champagne and dainty viands as presents to his pupils. His humour, so M. Moreau-Vauthier goes on to say, served as a mask to hide his sentiment. Poilpot, to whom GÉrÔme was destined later to give useful counsels for his panorama of Reischoffen, was working prior to 1870 in his studio. One day he went to show him some drawings. His master, having looked him over, inquired: "So, then, you have no shirt?" "No, patron," he replied, "I never wear any." The next day, Poilpot received a commission for a copy of an official portrait of Napoleon III, together with an advance payment of 600 francs. This pretty anecdote does as much honour to the pride of the one as to the delicacy of the other.

GÉrÔme sincerely loved the youth, the fantasy, the gaiety of France, and more especially of Paris. One perceives it in reading the sparkling preface which he wrote for M. Miguel ZamacoÏs' Articles of Paris, blithely illustrated by M. Guillaume. He was not too proud to appear at costume balls, nor to continue to take an interest in them even after he had ceased to attend them. He once put his name to a picturesque sign for a doll shop in the "Old Paris" exhibit at the Exposition. For an advertisement contest he painted a dog wearing a monocle, with this amusing inscription and play on words, "O pti cien" (0 petit chien, i.e., O little dog). He amused himself by sending to a toy competition, organized by the prefect of police, a little Pompeiian saleswoman holding a basket of various toys, and a diminutive police officer brandishing a white club.

GÉrÔme had always wished for a sudden and brusque death, "without physic and without night-cap." He was spared both physical and moral decline. At the age of seventy-nine he climbed the stairs, four steps at a time, and sprang upon moving omnibuses running. He died suddenly of a cerebral congestion, on his return from a dinner which he had attended together with his colleagues of the Institut, January 10, 1904.