Desert Arab

1804

Salon triumph: Bonaparte among the plague victims of Jaffa

At the Salon Gros debuts the canvas in which Bonaparte visits soldiers sick with bubonic plague at Jaffa and reaches out to one of them, unafraid of contagion. The painting brings Gros a triumph and launches his successful career; the year of its showing is given as 1804, other accounts say 1806.

1811

State commission for the Panthéon murals

Gros receives a state commission to decorate the interiors of the Paris Panthéon; the work will be completed only in 1824.

5 November 1816

Professor at the École des Beaux-Arts

Gros is appointed professor at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, succeeding François-Guillaume Ménageot.

1835

Failure of “Hercules and Diomedes” at the Salon of 1835

The painting “Hercules and Diomedes” meets such a storm of criticism in Paris that Gros sends it to Toulouse, to the local Musée des Augustins.

25 – 26 June 1835

Death in the Seine: suicide at Meudon

Abandoned by his pupils, alienated by the rising tide of Romanticism and short of money, Gros falls into depression and throws himself into the Seine at Meudon. The day of his death is given as 26 June; other accounts say 25 June.

1835年6月25日

Died