Jean-Léon Gérôme was a French artist known for his highly finished paintings and sculptures of mythological, Orientalist, and historical scenes. With technical virtuosity, Gérôme created paintings such as Pollice Verso (1872), an elaborate depiction of an ancient Roman gladiator poised to slay his enemy. Born on May 11, 1824 in Vesoul, France, he studied under the artist Paul Delaroche in Paris as a youth. In 1843, when Delaroche shuttered his studio to move to Italy, the young Gérôme went along to study the sites of ancient Rome. Returning to Paris a year later, he entered the studio of Charles Gleyre so he could be eligible for the prestigious Prix de Rome competition. Despite failing to win the prize, Gérôme won third place in the 1847 Salon with another painting. This effectively launched his career, and in the decades that followed, the artist consolidated his early success with several state-funded commissions. In his search for exotic subject matter, the artist traveled to Istanbul, Egypt, and North Africa. A revered teacher at the École des Beaux-Arts, Gérôme publicly derided many of his Impressionist contemporaries, including Édouard Manet and Claude Monet. He painted and sculpted up until his death on January 10, 1904 in Paris, France. Today, the artist’s works are held in the collections of the Louvre Museum in Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the National Gallery in London, among others.