Paul Delaroche

Son of the art dealer and collector Grégoire-Hippolyte (d. 1824), Paul Delaroche entered the École des Beaux-Arts in 1816 and studied under landscape painter Louis-Étienne Watelet (1780-1866), himself a student of Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes (1750-1819). After his failure in the Prix de Rome competitions for landscape, newly instituted in 1817, Delaroche switched in 1818 to the studio of history painter Gros (q.v.). Delaroche's first participation in the Salon in 1819 won him praise for his paintings of subjects from the Old and New Testaments. At this time the Bourbon monarchy,...