Eugène Devéria came from a family of artists. He began to train under his brother Achille and became then a pupil of Anne-Louis Girodet and Guillaume Lethière. His paintings were first shown at the Salon in 1824. Devéria specialised in large-format history paintings and received numerous commissions. One of his paintings is the mural Puget presenting his satue of Milo of Croton to Louis XIV in the gardens of Versailles, on display in the Salle d'Amasis in the Louvre. Together with other artists, he decorated the Musée de l'Histoire de France in Versailles on commission from King Louis-Philippe. Devéria was also a talented portraitist. Along with Eugène Delacroix and Louis Boulanger, Devéria is considered a pioneer of Romanticism in France. His style combines influences of Rubens, Verones and Ingres with contemporary elements. Besides Delacroix, he was one of the few Romantics to devote himself to religious subjects. In 1838, for example, he was commissioned to paint decorations at the Avignon Cathedral. In 1841, Devéria settled in the town of Pau in the Pyrenees. For some time, he mostly painted village scenes and taught pupils in his studio. From the end of the 1840s, Devéria again devoted himself to history painting and regularly showed his works at the Paris Salon until shortly before his death.