Baron François Pascal Simon Gérard (1770 – 1837)

• Was a prominent French painter.
• He was born in Rome, where his father occupied a post in the house of the French ambassador, and his mother was Italian.
• At the age of twelve, Gérard obtained admission into the Pension du Roi in Paris. 
• From the Pension, he passed to the studio of the sculptor Augustin Pajou, which he left at the end of two years for the studio of the history painter Nicolas-Guy Brenet, whom he quit almost immediately to place himself under Jacques-Louis David.
• After he was made a baron of the Empire in 1809 by Emperor Napoleon, he was known formally as Baron Gérard.
• Gérard is best remembered for his portraits. 
• His students included Heinrich Christoph Kolbe.
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