Williamstown, Massachusetts - Born in Sainte-Anne, Guadeloupe, Guillaume Lethière (1760–1832) was a key figure in French painting during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The son of a white plantation owner and an enslaved woman of mixed race, Lethière moved to France with his father at age fourteen and would soon thereafter begin studying drawing and painting. While establishing himself as a formidable history painter, Lethière successfully navigated the tumult of the French Revolution and its aftermath to achieve the highest levels of recognition in his time. A favorite artist of Napoleon Bonaparte’s brother Lucien Bonaparte, Lethière served as director of the Académie de France in Rome, as a member of the Institut de France, and as a professor at the École des Beaux-Arts. A well-respected teacher, he operated a robust studio that rivaled those of his most successful contemporaries and trained a number of artists, including young women and artists with connections to the Caribbean. Despite his remarkable accomplishments and considerable body of work, Lethière is not well known today and has never been the subject of a major exhibition. An examination of Lethière’s extraordinary career reveals an ambitious artist who worked in multiple genres and at the grandest scale and sheds new light on the presence and reception of Caribbean artists and cultural figures in France during his lifetime. 

Guillaume Lethière is co-organized by the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, and the Musée du Louvre, Paris, and curated by Esther Bell, deputy director and Robert and Martha Berman Lipp Chief Curator; and Olivier Meslay, Hardymon Director; with the assistance of Sophie Kerwin, curatorial assistant, at the Clark; and by Marie-Pierre Salé, chief curator in the Department of Drawings at the Louvre. 

Guillaume Lethière is made possible by Denise Littlefield Sobel and the Mellon Foundation. Major funding is provided by Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy Demands Wisdom; with additional support from Charles Butt, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, the Robert Lehman Foundation, and the Terra Foundation for American Art. 

Victor Levasseur, French Colonies (in America), from Atlas National Illustré des 86 départements et des possessions de la France..., engraving with pink and yellow watercolor, pen and orange, green, red, and blue ink. Private collection.

Jacques-Nicolas Bellin, Map of the Islands of Guadeloupe, Marie Galante, and Les Saintes, 1759. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, département des Cartes et plans, GE SH 18 PF 155 DIV 2 P 12/2.

Guillaume Lethière, Académie, 1776, red chalk, graphite, heightened with white. Bibliothèque municipale, Rouen, France, Collection Hédou, 14748.

Guillaume Lethière (Sainte-Anne, Guadeloupe, 1760–1832 Paris), Death of Camilla, 1785. Oil on canvas, 117.2 x 148.4 cm. Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Mary B. Jackson Fund, 72.144.

Guillaume Lethière (Sainte-Anne, Guadeloupe, 1760–1832 Paris), Brutus Condemning His Sons to Death, 1788. Oil on canvas, 59.4 x 99.1 cm. The Clark, 2018.1.1.

Guillaume Lethière (Sainte-Anne, Guadeloupe, 1760–1832 Paris), Frieze Representing the Neuf Thermidor (July 27, 1794), 1795. Pen and black and brown ink, brush and black and brown wash, graphite, 40 x 89.5 cm. MAH Musée d'art et d'histoire, Geneva. Deposit of the Société des Arts de Genève, 1981, let. 001. Photo: Bettina Jacot-Descombes.

Guillaume Lethière (Sainte-Anne, Guadeloupe, 1760–1832 Paris), Erminia and the Shepherds, 1795. Oil on canvas, 81.3 x 100.3 cm. Dallas Museum of Art, Foundation for the Arts Collection, Mrs. John B. O'Hara Fund, 2013.1.FA. Photo: Courtesy Dallas Museum of Art.

Louis-Léopold Boilly, Meeting of Artists in Isabey’s Studio (detail), 1798, oil on canvas. Musée du Louvre, Paris, RF 1290bis. Photo: RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY

Guillaume Lethière (Sainte-Anne, Guadeloupe, 1760–1832 Paris), The Homeland Is in Danger, 1799. Oil on canvas, 59 x 100 cm. Musée de la Révolution française, Domaine de Vizille-Département de l'Isère, France, acquired with support from the French state and the Rhône-Alpes region, MRF 1985-14. Photo: Coll. Musée de la Révolution française - Département de l'Isère.

Guillaume Lethière, Portrait of Adèle Papin Playing the Harp, c. 1799, oil on canvas. Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Heinz Family Fund, 2023.17. Photo: Studio Sebert for Tajan.

Guillaume Lethière (Sainte-Anne, Guadeloupe, 1760–1832 Paris), Woman Leaning on a Portfolio, 1799. Oil on canvas, 63.5 x 56.4 cm. Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts, museum purchase, 1954.21. Photo: Worcester Art Museum / Bridgeman Images.

Louis Gauffier, General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas in Hunting Costume, 1801, oil on canvas. Musée Bonnat-Helleu, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bayonne, France, CM 539. Photo: RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY.

Manufacture des Gobelins, after Guillaume Lethière (Sainte-Anne, Guadeloupe, 1760–1832 Paris), woven by Harland, Sollier l'aîné, Marie l'aîné, Abel-Nicolas Sollier, Renaud, Harland fils, Alexandre Duruy, Lemoine, Flament, Preliminaries of Peace Signed at Leoben, April 17, 1797, weaving commenced in November 1810, interrupted at the end of 1812, resumed in 1813, and suspended in April 1814. Wool and silk, 10 warps per cm, 330 x 195 cm. Mobilier national, Paris, GMTT-251-000. Photo: Isabelle Bideau, Mobilier national.

Guillaume Lethière (Sainte-Anne, Guadeloupe, 1760–1832 Paris), Joséphine, Empress of the French, 1807. Oil on canvas, 225 x 149 cm. Musée national des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, France, MV 4700. Photo: RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY.

Guillaume Lethière (Sainte-Anne, Guadeloupe, 1760–1832 Paris), Judgment of Paris, 1812. Oil on canvas, 198 x 279.4 cm. Private collection.

Guillaume Lethière, Homer Singing His Iliad at the Gates of Athens, c. 1814, oil on canvas. Nottingham City Museums and Galleries, England, NCM 1884-1. Photo: Nottingham City Museums and Galleries.

Denis Alexandre Volozan, Equestrian Portrait of Toussaint Louverture, c. 1800, pen and black ink, brush and gray wash, graphite. Musée d'Aquitaine, Ville de Bordeaux, France, Collection Chatillon, 20; 2003.4.188. Photo: Mairie de Bordeaux, Musée d'Aquitaine.

Guillaume Lethière (Sainte-Anne, Guadeloupe, 1760–1832 Paris), Ramparts. Pen and black and brown ink, brush and brown and gray wash, graphite, 17.1 x 24.4 cm. In Landscape Album, early nineteenth-century drawings Album assembled c. 1828-30 by Mélanie d'Hervilly (Brussels 1800-1878 Paris). The Clark, 2019.2.1.

Guillaume Lethière (Sainte-Anne, Guadeloupe, 1760–1832 Paris), Oath of the Ancestors, c. 1822. Oil on canvas, 334 x 228 cm. Musée du Panthéon National Haïtien, Port-au-Prince. Photo: RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY.

Hortense Haudebourt-Lescot, Self-Portrait, 1825, oil on canvas. Musée du Louvre, Paris, MI 719. Photo: RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY

Guillaume Lethière, Death of Virginia, c. 1823-28, oil on paper, mounted on canvas. J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 2023.7

Guillaume Lethière (Sainte-Anne, Guadeloupe, 1760–1832 Paris), Lafayette Introducing Louis-Philippe to the People of Paris, 1830. Oil on canvas. Tokyo Fuji Art Museum, 1132-AB053. Photo: Tokyo Fuji Art Museum / Bridgeman Images.