Hemicycle (detail)

1837 · École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris

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In 1837 Delaroche was given an important commission. It was to decorate the apse of the École des Beaux-Arts with a cycle of more than 70 of the most famous artists since Antiquity. This pantheon of art was known as the Hemicycle, and for decades it served artists from every country as a model of allegorical fresco painting.

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About the Artist

Paul Delaroche

1797 – 1856

French painter, one of the leading pupils of Gros. He achieved great popularity with his melodramatic history scenes, engravings of his work hanging in thousands of homes. Often he chose subjects from English history, as with two of his most famous works, The Little Princes in the Tower (Louvre, Paris, 1831) and The Execution of Lady Jane Grey (National Gallery, London, 1833). They are Romantic in flavour, but academically impeccable in their draughtsmanship and detailing. After a period when such pictures were totally out of favour, his work is once again being treated seriously.

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