Guillaume Guillon-Lethière (1760 – 1832)

• Was a French neoclassical painter.
• Born free in Guadeloupe in 1760 to a French colonial official named Pierre Guillon and a "mulatto" mother.
• At 14 years old, his father took him from Guadeloupe to Metropolitan France.
• By the age of 17, Guillon-Lethièrehe had become the student of Gabriel François Doyen at the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture.
• Lethière won second prize in the Prix de Rome of 1784 for his painting Woman of Canaan at the Feet of Christ.
• He entered again two years later, he succeeded in receiving support to travel to Rome where he further developed his neoclassical style.
• Lethière remained in Rome for several years.
• In 1791 he returned to Paris to open a painting studio in direct competition with Jacques-Louis David.
• In 1818 Lethière was finally elected and also awarded the Légion d’honneur.
• A year later he became a professor at the École des Beaux-Arts.
• Among his students were Isidore Pils and Polish-Lithuanian painter Kanuty Rusiecki.
• Lethière was foster father to Mélanie d'Hervilly, later Hahnemann.
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