Hortense Haudebourt-Lescot, Self-Portrait, 1825, oil on canvas. Musée du Louvre, Paris, MI 719. Photo: RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY

Beginning as early as 1792, following his training in Rome, Lethière established his first studio in Paris. As the head of a formidable studio, the director of the Académie de France in Rome from 1807 to 1816, and a professor at the École des Beaux-Arts beginning in 1819, Lethière was a lifelong teacher and took an active interest in mentoring the artists of the next generation. Occupying a few different addresses over the course of his career, Lethière’s Parisian studio rivaled those of his eminent contemporaries Jacques-Louis David and Antoine-Jean Gros both for the number and success of his students. Lethière’s students frequently won the coveted Prix de Rome, the most prestigious award granted by the Académie, in the categories of history painting and paysage historique, an emergent genre combining the traditions of history and landscape painting.

Notably, many of Lethière’s students had ties to the Caribbean, including a number of young women whose families entrusted their education to Lethière from a very young age and who went on to have successful careers as professional artists. Lethière’s correspondence attests to his persistent and enthusiastic support of these students.