The Palace Courtyard

Georges-Antoine Rochegrosse was born to Élise Marie Bourotte (1828-1904) and Jules Jean Baptiste Rochegrosse who died in 1874. In 1875, his mother remarried the poet Théodore de Banville, of whom Georges-Antoine became the adopted son. He frequented the artists and men of letters that his father-in-law received at his home: Paul Verlaine , Stéphane Mallarmé , Arthur Rimbaud , Victor Hugo and Gustave Flaubert .

Rochegrosse studied at the age of 12 in Paris with Jules Joseph Lefebvre and Gustave Clarence Rodolphe Boulanger at the Académie Julian, where he later taught draughtsmanship. His themes are generally historical, and he treated them on a colossal scale and in an emotional naturalistic style, with a distinct revelling in horrible subjects and details

While enjoying the benefits of the more liberal teaching at the Académie Julian, he enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts, and was a finalist in the Prix de Rome competition twice. In 1883 he won the Prix du Salon, which enabled him to visit Italy. He subsequently travelled to Belgium, Holland and Germany. Around 1890 he married his great love Marie Leblond, who became the model for the heroines in his paintings for about 30 years.

From 1900, Rochegrosse and Marie spent the winter months in El-Biar, in the hills above the Bay of Algiers, where the painter often found the Oriental backgrounds for his compositions.