He received his artistic training in the French provinces and went to Italy when he was twenty-six years old to continue his education.

His work for wealthy Parisians led him to be held in high esteem at Napoleon's court.

His painting of Josephine portrays her not as an Empress, but as an attractive woman, which led some to think that he might have been in love with her.

He was appreciated by other artists and writers, including Stendhal, Delacroix, Millet and Baudelaire, for his chiaroscuro and convincing realism.

The young Théodore Géricault had painted copies of work by Prud'hon, whose "thunderously tragic pictures" include his masterpiece, Justice and Divine Vengeance Pursuing Crime, where oppressive darkness and the compositional base of a naked, sprawled corpse obviously anticipate Géricault's painting The Raft of the Medusa.