Eagle Expiring, Monument for Waterloo

1864–1904

The studio everyone wanted to join

Places in Gérôme’s atelier were limited and keenly sought: only the best students were admitted. Students progressed from drawing after antique works and casts to drawing from the live model and only then were allowed to paint in oils; he attended every Wednesday and Saturday and was known as a severe critic, but helped his students outside the school too, inviting them to his own studio and recommending them to the Salon.

1902

Preface: “Photography is an art”

In his preface to Émile Bayard’s “Le Nu esthétique” (1902) Gérôme wrote that photography is an art which forces artists to shed old routine, and that thanks to it Truth has at last come out of her well and will never go back.

1903

Preface to a book on Jalabert: “the end of a world”

In his 1903 preface to a book on Charles Jalabert, recalling their first meeting in 1840, Gérôme wrote that they had witnessed the end of one world and the dawn of another, one lacking the picturesque and above all serenity: the Paris of 1840 had known no railways, bicycles or cars.

31 December 1903

A letter to Aublet: “I begin to have enough of life”

On 31 December 1903 Gérôme wrote to his student and former assistant Albert Aublet that he had begun to have enough of life: he had seen too much misery and misfortune in the lives of others and was growing eager to escape this theatre. He had just ten more days to live.

10 January 1904

Found dead in his studio

On the morning of 10 January 1904 Gérôme was found dead in his studio, lying by a portrait of Rembrandt. As an officer of the Legion of Honour he was entitled to a state funeral, but in his will he specifically asked that there be none.

10 January 1904

Died