1824 -1904 · Vesoul, Paris, Italy, Egypt, Levant and workshop of Fine Arts

Archaeological precision, theatricality and impeccable surfaces make Jean-Léon Gérôme a major figure in academic and orientalist painting.

Jean-Léon Gérôme was born in Vesoul in 1824 and moved to Paris in 1840 to study with Paul Delaroche. He accompanied his master to Italy, observed ancient ruins and prepared a career based on drawing, perspective and narration. His success at the Salon of 1847 with Young Greeks Making Roosters Beat associated him with the neo-Greek movement. Gérôme then expanded his repertoire to Roman history, biblical episodes, portraiture and scenes inspired by his travels in Egypt and the Levant. Bachi-Bouzouk, painted after his return from an expedition in 1868, condensed his virtuosity in Roman history, biblical episodes, portraiture and scenes inspired by his travels in Egypt and the Levant. Bachi-Bouzouk, painted after his return from an expedition in 1868, condensed his virtuosity in the fabrics, weapons and dignity of the model. These orientalist images combine observations and objects reported and staged from a workshop; they must also be looked at in the colonial context which shaped the European representation of elsewhere. In Chariot Race, architecture and crowds become a spectacular machine. Pygmalion and Galatea connects painting and sculpture around the moment when the material comes to life. From the 1870s, Gérôme intensely practiced sculpture, often polychrome, and staged his own work as a sculptor in The Artist and His Model. From the 1870s, Gérôme intensely practiced sculpture, often polychrome, and staged his own work as a sculptor in The Artist and His Model. Influential professor at the School of Fine Arts, he trained several generations intensely while fighting impressionism. Died in his studio in 1904, he left a work where apparent accuracy historical imagination and the making of the show remain inseparable. The "Jean-Léon Gérôme" selection notably compares Bachi-Bouzouk and Course de chars. His reading favors movement.

At Gérôme, the painting resembles a scene in which each stone, fabric and gesture has been adjusted to make the imagination as precise as a memory.