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A Creole in Napoleon’s Paris

Born in Guadeloupe to a sugar plantation owner and a freedwoman, Guillaume Lethière rose to become the head of the French Academy in Rome, but is now almost entirely forgotten. The Clark Institute and the Louvre are mounting an eye-opening revival.

Louis-Léopold Boilly, Meeting of Artists in Isabey’s Studio
The show prominently features Louis-Léopold Boilly’s painting Meeting of Artists in Isabey’s Studio, in which Lethière dominates the image as its central and largest figure, draped in a red cloak. Photo: Courtesy of The Clark
Marion Maneker
August 4, 2024

Guillaume Lethière’s life reads like a novel written by Alexandre Dumas—the author of The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, and The Man in the Iron Mask. The child of a wealthy French plantation owner and Creole freedwoman, he moved from Guadeloupe to Paris at 14. Through talent and hard work, he began to show promise as an artist, but he also had to rely on his family’s powerful social and political connections—although it would be many years before his father was able to recognize him as his heir.