Jean Leon Gerome

Jean Leon Gerome (11 May 1824 – 10 January 1904) was a French painter and sculptor in the style now known as Academicism. The range of his oeuvre included historical painting, Greek mythology, Orientalism, portraits and other subjects, bringing the Academic painting tradition to an artistic climax. Among Gerome’s best paintings may be named (many depict Eastern and ancient subjects): Turkish Prisoner and Turkish Butcher (1863), Prayer (1865), The Slave Market (1867), Excursion of the Harem (1869), Louis XIV and Molière (1863), The Reception of the Siamese Ambassadors at Fontainebleau (1865), Death of Marshal Ney (1867), Phryne before the Areopagus (1861), Reception of Le Grand Condé at Versailles (1878), and Pollice Verso (1872), which popularized the “thumbs down” gesture.