ID photo: Painting by François Gérard, 1791 Antoine-Jean Gros (16 March 1771-25 June 1835), also known as Baron Gros; French history and neoclassical painter. Born in Paris, at 6 Gros began to learn to draw from his father, Jean-Antoine Gros, a miniature painter, and showed himself as a gifted artist. Towards the close of 1785, Gros, by his own choice, entered the studio of Jacques-Louis David, continuing at the same time to follow classes of the Collège Mazarin. ...citing Britannica, "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." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine-Jean_Gros) Gros was a well-known and highly respected French artist who specialized in historical Napoleon portraits under the tutelage of Jacques-Louis David. Gros had been introduced to Bonaparte in 1796 by Napoleon’s sweetheart, Josephine, in Milan when he was away from France for safety’s sake after the French Revolution. He returned with the Napoleonic entourage and became a valued member of the group’s artistic corps. He specialized in romantic, Rubenesque portraits of various officers and vast, mural-size paintings that have been called spontaneous and free in brushwork, spacious in atmosphere, and smouldering in emotive color by 20th century art critics. Gros’ artistic star soared with Napoleon’s own comet of fame, and slowly declined in brightness after the French emperor’s death in 1821. Called the first great romantic painter, Gros by age 64 suffered from personal dissatisfaction in his later career. In despair, he drowned himself in the Seine in 1835. (http://www.historiaobscura.com/the-laffite-portrait-proves-the-authenticity-of-the-laffite-journal/#comments) undefined

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