Michel Ghislain STAPLEAUX is a Belgian painter born in Brussels on June 26, 1799 and died in Gien on October 28, 1881. History and portrait painter, he was trained with Jacques-Louis DAVID. He was awarded two gold medals at the history painting competition in Brussels in 1822 and that of Antwerp in 1823. He was DAVID's last assistant during his years of exile in Brussels. He worked with his master mainly on "Mars disarmed by Venus" and the graces of which he organized the exhibition in Paris in 1824, and was responsible for completing the "Wrath of Achilles". DAVID also entrusted him with the supervision of the engravings after the Oath of the tennis court, the "Coronation of Napoleon and Leonidas at Thermopylae". Present at the time of the painter's death, he took part in his funeral in January 1826 as a former student, with Joseph PAELINCK and François-Joseph NAVEZ and laid DAVID's brushes and palette on his grave. In 1834, he was commissioned to paint the portraits of the members of the family of Jérôme BONAPARTE in Stuttgart, official painter of the King of Württemberg, he received the great medal of merit of Württemberg in 1839. He married the painter Louise SCHAVIJE.