Born in Paris in 1826, the son of an architect, he had poor health and entered the Ecole Royale des Beaux-Arts only in 1846. He failed twice at the Prix de Rome, was influenced by Théodore Chasseriau, the neoclassical painter who was a pupil of Ingres, and traveled several times to Italy where he copied the masters. This background was to lend his art a slightly academic, slightly Carpaccio-style Italian, slightly romantic, symbolist, religious touch, unusual in its desire to escape from reality. Moreau exhibited several times in the Salons with mixed results. Napoleon III liked his art, as a result of which he was awarded medals and a Légion d'Honneur and, in 1888, was elected to the Academie des Beaux-Arts. From 1892 until his death in 1898, he taught at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts where his pupils included Matisse, Rouault, Manguin and Marquet.