Over the objections of his father, the miniature painter Jérome Langlois, who initially opposed his son’s pursuit of his own profession, Jérome Martin Langlois entered the studio of Jacques-Louis David. He became one of David’s favorite students, collaborating with the artist on a number of important paintings, including Napoleon Crossing the Alps (1800, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum), for which Langlois painted Napoleon’s horse, and Leonidas at Thermopylae (1814, Paris, Musée du Louvre). Langlois placed second in the Prix de Rome in 1805 and captured first place in 1809. Beginning in 1806 he exhibited regularly at the Salon. In 1817 Langlois earned a second-class medal and in 1819 a first-class medal at the Salon. He last exhibited in 1837, the year prior to his death. He was made a chevalier of the Légion d’honneur in 1819 and a member of the Institut de France in 1831. Langlois built his reputation as a painter of religious and historical subjects; however, one of his best-known works is the portrait of his teacher, Jacques-Louis David, made in Brussels in 1824.