Gérôme, Léon, French historical genre-painter, was born at Vesoul, 11th May 1824, and in 1841 entered the studio of Paul Delaroche at Paris, at the same time attending the School of the Fine Arts. He began to exhibit in 1847; in 1855, 1857, and 1864 he travelled in the East; and in 1863 he was appointed professor of Painting in the School of the Fine Arts. His first great picture, 'The Age of Augustus and the Birth of Christ,' was exhibited in 1855; and four years later his 'Roman Gladiators in the Amphitheatre' raised to the highest pitch his reputation as a colourist and painter of the human figure, a reputation which was still further enhanced by 'Phryne before her Judges' (1861).
In the same year he exhibited, among other pictures, 'Socrates searching for Alcibiades at the House of Aspasia,' 'The Two Augurs,' and a portrait of Rachel. 'Louis XIV. and Molière,' 'The Prisoner,' 'Cleopatra and Cæsar,' 'The Death of Cæsar,' 'The Plague at Marseilles,' 'Death of St Jerome,' 'Lioness meeting a Jaguar,' 'Rex Tibicen' (1874), and 'L'Éminence Grise' (1874) are among the best known of his subsequent works. See Mrs C. H. Stranahan, History of French Painting (1889).