Eugène Lenepveu

Eugène Lenepveu studied at French Academy in Rome and Beaux-Arts de Paris. Training under Jean-Michel Mercier and François-Édouard Picot is recorded. Joséphine Berthault is recorded as having studied under Eugène Lenepveu. The recorded working language is French. Places of work recorded in the authority are Rome. Positions recorded include director of the French Academy in Rome. Works named in the authority record are The Martyrs in the catacombs. Work by Eugène Lenepveu is recorded in the collections of Musée des Beaux-Arts de la ville de Paris, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Quimper, Musée d'Orsay, Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Angers and Musée Pincé. Distinctions recorded are Officer of the Legion of Honour and Prix de Rome.

Born at Angers, he studied at the école des Beaux-Arts, and later was a pupil of François-Édouard Picot in Paris. He entered the École nationale. After winning the Prix de Rome in 1847 with his painting of The Death of Vitellius, he went to Rome to complete his education. He became famous for his vast historical canvases, including the ceilings of the Opéra de Paris (1869–71; covered by a Marc Chagall work), and of the theatre at Angers (1871). He was director of the French Academy in Rome from 1872 to 1878. Between 1886 and 1890, he painted the fresco of the life of Joan of Arc at the Panthéon, Paris. In 1900, two years after his death, a monument to him was put up in the courtyard of the Musée des Beaux-Arts, and a pedestrianised street in Angers was later named after him.

• Illustration — Joan as Shepherdess • Illustration — Joan in Armour at Orléans • Illustration — Joan in Reims Cathedral • Illustration — Joan at the Stake in Rouen