Queer Places:
École des Beaux-Arts, 14 Rue Bonaparte, 75006 Paris, France
François-Léon Benouville (Paris
30 March 1821 – 16 February 1859
Paris) was a
French painter noted for his Neoclassical religious compositions and for
painting Orientalist subjects. The Wrath of Achilles (1847) is often cited as an homoerotic painting.
Léon Benouville first studied with his elder brother, Jean-Achille Benouville (1815–1891), in the studio of François-Edouard Picot before he transferred to École des Beaux-Arts in 1837. Like his brother he received the Prix de Rome in 1845.
Both he and his brother travelled to Rome. In Rome, as a Prix de Rome pensionary at the Villa Medici. He remained there for a year, but his brother stayed on for two more years. His works produced in Rome are influenced by early Christianity and often show representations of antiquity.
Benouville was best known for his portraits, mythological and religious compositions in the Neoclassical and Orientalist style. He worked in oils, ink and chalk.
In 1845, Benouville, together with contemporary Alexandre Cabanel, was the recipient the Prix de Beaux Arts for his painting, Jesus at the Pretorium.[1]
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