Jules Michelet par Thomas Couture (cropped)

Thomas Couture (1815–1879) was an academic painter best known for his portraits and historical genre pictures such as “The Romans of the Decadence” (1847), which created a sensation at the Salon of 1847. Couture developed his excellent portrait skills under Baron Antoine-Jean Gros. An academician of stature, he combined soft, 18th-century coloring and a strict 19th-century classicism in his most important work. His sharp use of tonal contrasts is thought to have influenced one of his most famed students, Édouard Manet. Puvis de Chavannes and Henri Fantin-Latour also studied under this popular teacher.