Joseph Noël Sylvestre

Joseph-Noël Sylvestre (1847–1926) was a French artist, notable for his studies of classic scenes from antiquity. He was born in Béziers in South-West France on 24 June 1847, training as an artist first in Toulouse under Thomas Couture, then at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris under Alexandre Cabanel. He was an exponent of the romantic Academic art style, also known as art pompier (fireman's art), examples of which are the Death of Seneca (1875), The Gaul Ducar decapitates the Roman general Flaminius at the Battle of Trasimene (1882), The Sack of Rome by the barbarians in 410 (1890) and François Rude working on the Arc de Triomphe (1893).