Lethière’s Directorship at the Académie de France in Rome

Guillaume Lethière, Homer Singing His Iliad at the Gates of Athens, c. 1814, oil on canvas. Nottingham City Museums and Galleries, England, NCM 1884-1. Photo: Nottingham City Museums and Galleries

Lethière’s loyalty to Lucien Bonaparte, and to his family, resulted in a major milestone in his career in 1807: his appointment as director of the Académie de France in Rome, the leading French academy outside of Paris. Lethière’s new position of power was a career coup. When he arrived in October 1807, however, he found the institution and its physical structure in a state of disrepair. The school had recently moved from the Palazzo Mancini to the Villa Medici, where the gardens were in disarray and the fountains were inoperable, the rooms were sparsely furnished, and the students were underfunded and lacked discipline. Under Lethière’s leadership, the institution once again found sure footing, and residents thrived.

During his Roman directorate, Lethière undertook three of the most technically ambitious paintings of his career: Homer Singing His Iliad at the Gates of Athens, Judgment of Paris, and the monumental Brutus Condemning His Sons to Death, which measures more than 25 feet wide (Musée du Louvre, Paris). His paintings of Homer and Brutus would be sent to London and exhibited in 1816 to great fanfare.