Circle of Antoine Jean Gros (French, 1771–1835)Title:
The death of Patroclus
Oil on Paper laid on Canvas
28.6 x 35.5 cm. (11.3 x 14 in.)
Private collection
According to the Iliad, when the tide of the Trojan War had turned against the Greeks and the Trojans were threatening their ships, Patroclus convinced Achilles to let him lead the Myrmidons into combat. Achilles consented, giving Patroclus the armor Achilles had received from his father, in order for Patroclus to impersonate Achilles. Achilles then told Patroclus to return after beating the Trojans back from their ships. Patroclus defied Achilles' order and pursued the Trojans back to the gates of Troy. Patroclus killed many Trojans and Trojan allies, including a son of Zeus, Sarpedon. While fighting, Patroclus' wits were removed by Apollo, after which Patroclus was hit with the spear of Euphorbos. Hector then killed Patroclus by stabbing him in the stomach with a spear. More on The death of Patroclus
Antoine-Jean Gros (16 March 1771 – 25 June 1835), titled as Baron Gros in 1824,was a French painter. His work was in the genres of history and neoclassical painting.
Born in Paris, Gros began to learn to draw at the age of six from his father, Jean-Antoine Gros, who was a miniature painter, and showed himself as a gifted artist. His mother, Pierrette-Madeleine-Cécile Durand, was also a painter. Towards the close of 1785, Gros, by his own choice, entered the studio of Jacques-Louis David, which he frequented assiduously, continuing at the same time to follow the classes of the Collège Mazarin.
Antoine-Jean Gros (1771–1835)
Bonaparte at the Pont d'Arcole, c. 1796
Oil on canvas
Height: 130 cm (51.1 in); Width: 94 cm (37 in)
Palace of Versailles
On 15 November 1796, Gros was present with the army near Arcola when Bonaparte planted the French tricolor on the bridge. Gros seized on this incident, and showed by his treatment of it (Bonaparte at the pont d'Arcole) that he had found his vocation. Bonaparte at once gave him the post of inspecteur aux revues, which enabled him to follow the army, and in 1797 nominated him to the commission charged with selecting the spoils which should enrich the Louvre.
Gros began an independent artistic career during the French Revolution. Forced to leave France, he moved to Genoa and witnessed the nearby Battle of Arcole (1796) (See above). Inspired by an event during the battle, he produced a portrait of the French commander, Napoleon Bonaparte, then a newly promoted general. The portrait brought Gros to public attention and gained the patronage of Napoleon.
He supported himself at Genoa by producing a great quantity of miniatures and fixés. He visited Florence, but returned to Genoa where he made the acquaintance of Joséphine de Beauharnais. He followed her to Milan, where he was well received by her husband, Napoleon Bonaparte.
Antoine-Jean Gros (1771–1835)
Battle of Nazareth, c. 1801
Oil on canvas
Height: 135 cm (53.1 in); Width: 195 cm (76.7 in)
Museum of Fine Arts, Nantes
In 1799, having escaped from the besieged city of Genoa, Gros made his way to Paris. His esquisse of the Battle of Nazareth (See above) gained the prize offered in 1802 by the consuls, but was not carried out; felt by Napoleon; who indemnified Gros by commissioning him to paint his own visit to the pest-house of Jaffa. Les Pestiférés de Jaffa (Louvre) (See below) was followed by The Battle of Aboukir, 1806 (Versailles) (See below), and The Battle of Eylau, 1808 (Louvre) (See below).
Antoine-Jean Gros (1771–1835)
Bonaparte visitant les pestiférés de Jaffa le 11 mars 1799/ Bonaparte Visiting the Plague Victims of Jaffa, c. 1804
Oil on canvas
715 × 523 cm
Louvre Museum
Bonaparte Visits the Plague Stricken in Jaffa (French: Bonaparte visitant les pestiférés de Jaffa) is an 1804 painting shows Napoleon during a striking scene which is supposed to have occurred in Jaffa on 11 March 1799, depicting then General Bonaparte making a visit to his sick soldiers at the Armenian Saint Nicholas Monastery. The commission was an attempt to embroider Bonaparte's mythology and quell reports that Napoleon had ordered fifty plague victims in Jaffa be given fatal doses of opium during his retreat from his Syrian expedition. More on Bonaparte Visiting the Plague Victims of Jaffa
At the Salon of 1804, Gros debuted his painting Bonaparte Visiting the Plague Victims of Jaffa. The painting launched his career as a successful painter. It depicts Bonaparte in Jaffa visiting soldiers infected with the bubonic plague. He is portrayed reaching out to one of the sick, unfazed by the illness.
Antoine-Jean Gros (1771–1835)
Bataille d'Aboukir, 25 Juillet 1799/ The Battle of Aboukir, c. 1807
Oil on canvas
Height: 578 cm (18.9 ft); Width: 968 cm (10.5 yd)
Palace of Versailles
The Battle of Abukir was a battle in which Napoleon Bonaparte defeated Seid Mustafa Pasha's Ottoman army on 25 July 1799, during the French campaign in Egypt. It is considered the first pitched battle with this name, as there already was a naval battle on 1 August 1798. No sooner had the French forces returned from a campaign to Syria, than the Ottoman forces were transported to Egypt by Sidney Smith's British fleet to put an end to French rule in Egypt. More on The Battle of Abukir
Antoine-Jean Gros (1771–1835)
Napoléon sur le champ de bataille d'Eylau/ Napoleon on the Battlefield of Eylau, c. 1808
Oil on canvas
Height: 521 cm (17 ft); Width: 784 cm (25.7 ft)
Louvre Museum
Napoléon on the Battlefield of Eylau became an icon of the emerging style of French Romanticism. It depicts a moment from the aftermath of the bloody Battle of Eylau (7–8 February 1807) in which Napoléon Bonaparte surveys the battlefield where his Grande Armée secured a costly victory against the Russians. Although Napoleon on the Battlefield of Eylau retains elements of history painting, it is by far Gros's most realistic work depicting Napoleon and breaks from the subtlety of Neoclassicism. More on Napoleon on the Battlefield of Eylau
After travelling with Napoleon's army for several years, he returned to Paris in 1799. Gros produced several large paintings of battles and other events in Napoleon's life. These were mostly in a neoclassical style, but Napoléon on the Battlefield of Eylau adopted a more realistic portrayal of the horrors of war. Gros also painted portraits of officers in the French army and members of French high society. After the fall of Napoleon, he shifted his artistic focus and produced more history paintings.
Antoine-Jean Gros (1771–1835)
Napoleon accepts the surrender of Madrid, 4 December 1808, c. 1810
Oil on canvas
Height: 361 cm (11.8 ft); Width: 500 cm (16.4 ft)
Palace of the Versailles
Napoleon Accepts the Surrender of Madrid, 4th December 1808. Jean Gros shows the success of the French quashing of the months-long Spanish revolt against Bonaparte’s rule, and the banishment of the British forces from the Iberian peninsula. Painted two years after the events took place and exhibited at the Salon of 1810. More on this painting
Antoine-Jean Gros (1771–1835)
Battle of the Pyramids, July 21, 1798, c. 1810
Oil on canvas
389 x 311 cm
Palace of Versailles
Napoleon at the Pyramids in 1798, painted 12 years after the event in 1810 shows a packed battle scene filled with action, as Napoleon gestures to the pyramids as if to confirm the longevity of his regime which was to last an additional four years. More on this painting
In 1810, his Madrid (See above) and Napoleon at the Pyramids (See above) show that his star had deserted him. His Francis I and Charles V, 1812 (Louvre), had considerable success. The "Departure of Louis XVIII" (Versailles) (See below), the Embarkation of Madame d'Angoulême (Bordeaux) (See below), and finally his Hercules and Diomedes (See below), exhibited in 1835, testify that Gros's efforts to stem the rising tide of Romanticism only damaged his once brilliant reputation.
Antoine-Jean Gros (1771–1835)
The Farewells of Louis XVIII leaving the Tuileries Palace on the night of March 20, 1815
Oil on canvas
405 × 525 c
Palace of Versailles
Following the French Revolution and during the Napoleonic era, Louis XVIII lived in exile in Prussia, England, and Russia. When the Sixth Coalition finally defeated Napoleon in 1814, Louis XVIII was placed in what he, and the French royalists, considered his rightful position. However, Napoleon escaped from his exile in Elba and restored his French Empire. Louis XVIII fled, and a Seventh Coalition declared war on the French Empire, defeated Napoleon again, and again restored Louis XVIII to the French throne. More on Louis XVIII leaving the Tuileries Palace
Antoine-Jean Gros (1771–1835)
Embarkation of the Duchess of Angoulême in Pauillac, c. 1819
Oil on canvas
Height: 326 cm (10.6 ft); Width: 504 cm (16.5 ft)
Bordeaux Fine Arts Museum
Marie-Thérèse Charlotte of France (19 December 1778 – 19 October 1851), Madame Royale, was the eldest child of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, and the only one to reach adulthood (her siblings all dying before the age of 11). She was married to Louis Antoine, Duke of Angoulême, who was the eldest son of the future Charles X, her father's younger brother; thus the bride and groom were also first cousins.
After her marriage, she was known as the Duchess of Angoulême. She became the Dauphine of France upon the accession of her father-in-law to the throne of France in 1824. Technically she was Queen of France for twenty minutes, on 2 August 1830, between the time her father-in-law signed the instrument of abdication and the time her husband, reluctantly, signed the same document. More on Duchess of Angoulême
Antoine-Jean Gros (1771–1835)
Hercule et Diomède/ Hercules and Diomedes, c. 1835
Musée des Augustins de Toulouse
Diomedes is a hero in Greek mythology, known for his participation in the Trojan War.
He became King of Argos. In Homer's Iliad Diomedes is regarded alongside Ajax the Great and Agamemnon, after Achilles, as one of the best warriors of all the Achaeans in prowess. Later, he founded ten or more Italian cities. After his death, Diomedes was worshipped as a divine being under various names in Italy as well as Greece.
Heracles encounters King Diomedes through performing his eighth labour. Eurystheus, King of Tiryns and Heracles' cousin, had sent Heracles to capture the Mares of Diomedes after he had completed his seventh labour, capturing the Cretan Bull. Heracles travelled to the shores of the Black Sea to meet King Diomedes.
Upon arrival, Heracles, knowing how King Diomedes treats strangers, wrestles with him, trying to bring King Diomedes to the stables, where the mares live. Even though Heracles is said to have unmatched strength, it is a long and reasonably even match, since Diomedes himself is the son of the god of war. He eventually loses to Heracles. More on Hercules and Diomedes
In 1911 "Exasperated by criticism and the consciousness of failure, Gros sought refuge in the gros[ser] pleasures of life." On 25 June 1835, he was found drowned on the shores of the Seine at Meudon, near Sèvres. From a paper which he had placed in his hat, it became known that "tired of life, and betrayed by last faculties which rendered it bearable, he had resolved to end it." More on Antoine-Jean Gros
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