This catalog highlights and analyzes his bountiful expression of a visual grammar that takes illusionist obsession to the limits of the bizarre and establishes a resonance with all visual arts, including prints, photography, and cinema. In particular, it will make it possible to propose new approaches to such diverse issues as Gérome's place in the French painting of his time, his theatrical conception of historical themes, his complex exoticism, his use of polychrome in sculpture, his role as a teacher, his relationship with historical models, how the figure of this artist galvanized the anti-academy clash at the end of the nineteenth century, and lastly, the singular American destiny of his works.

Gérome was one of the most famous artists of his day, yet throughout his career he was the object of polemical debate and harsh criticism. Long stigmatized as the embodiment of sterile academicism, he is now considered to be one of the greates painters of the nineteenth century. Gérome's interest in Antiquity, his theatrical approach to history painting, and his complex relationships with the Orient and with the new medium of photography atl contributed to his highly inventive imagery.

Acquired by American collectors at an early date, Gérome's oeuvre fired the new world's historical imagination and even inspired its favorite medium, the movies This catalogue traces Gérome's unique career and features his major works-from history paintings to polychrome sculptures-thereby casting the nineteenth century in a new light.