Jean-Léon Gérôme - Löwe auf der Wache - 1945.25 - Cleveland Museum of Art

Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904) was a French painter and sculptor in the style now known as academicism. His paintings were so widely reproduced that he was "arguably the world's most famous living artist by 1880." The range of his oeuvre included historical painting, Greek mythology, Orientalism, portraits, and other subjects, bringing the academic painting tradition to an artistic climax.