Hippolyte Flandrin was the second of three brothers—sons of an amateur portrait painter—who became artists. In 1821 Hippolyte and his younger brother, Paul (1811-1902), were introduced to the sculptor Jean-François Legendre-Héral (1796-1851) and the painter André Magnin (1794-1823), who trained them to make copies of plaster casts and engravings. The brothers later worked with the animal and landscape painter Jean-Antoine Duclaux (1783-1868) before entering the École des Beaux-Arts, Lyon, in 1826. Trained in lithography at a young age by their older brother, Auguste (1801-1842), Hippolyte and Paul supported themselves through the sale of their lithographs. In 1829 the brothers moved to Paris and enrolled in the studio of Jean-François Ingres (1780-1867). After several unsuccessful attempts, Hippolyte succeeded in winning the Prix de Rome in 1832. Two years later Paul joined him in Rome. The brothers returned to France in 1836, whereupon Hippolyte received important commissions from the state for the mural decoration of some of the most important churches in Paris. A devout Catholic who considered his art an expression of his service to God, Flandrin turned for inspiration to Raphael and the earlier masters of the Italian Quattrocento in his desire to revitalize religious painting in the nineteenth century. Flandrin was elected a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1853; in 1857 he was appointed professor at the École des Beaux-Arts. In 1863 he moved back to Rome, where he died the following year.