(1836–1911). The French painter Jules Lefebvre combined a modern, scientific concern for recording physical reality with a knowledge of traditional techniques of the European masters. He excelled at painting portraits and female nudes.
Jules-Joseph Lefebvre was born in Tournan, France, on March 14, 1836. He studied at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in the 1850s. In 1861 he won the Prix de Rome, a scholarship sponsored by the French government for study at the French Academy in Rome. While in Rome, Lefebvre was strongly influenced by the work of Italian Renaissance painter Andrea del Sarto. He created an early masterpiece, Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi, on a subject from ancient Roman history, but later he turned to portraits and nudes. Among his most famous nudes are Reclining Woman (1868) and Truth (1870). Lefebvre was widely imitated by aspiring artists, and his work was prized especially by collectors in the United States, who appreciated its simplicity.
Beginning in the 1870s Lefebvre taught art at the Académie Julian in Paris. He received many honors, including admission to the order of the French Legion of Honor in 1898. Lefebvre died in Paris on Feb. 24, 1911.