Jules Joseph Lefebvre studied in the studio of Leon Cogniet from 1852. He was a precise draughtsmanship, who used delicate colors and a lubricity in all of his works. He competed at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1853 until he won the Prix de Rome in 1861.

While studying in Rome, he became greatly influenced by Mannerism and especially by Andrea del Sarto, whose works he copied.

In 1866 he experienced a severe depression caused by the death of his parents and one of his sisters, and by criticism of the last major work he painted in Rome. After these experiences he turned from history painting to portraits and nudes; he exhibited 72 portraits in Salons between 1855 and 1898, but little is known about them since nearly all remain in private collections.

Lefebvre occasionally finished large-scale, ambitious paintings but he made his reputation with nudes. Critics praised his paintings and recognized its eroticism, yet there was no scandal as there had been with earlier artists. He avoided the signs of contemporary social reality, prostitution or the model’s personality that characterized other artists' paintings and focused instead on the woman’s beauty, stressing her passivity and availability.

Lefebvre was considered an Academic and a Classicist. In the 1870’s he became a teacher at the Academie Julien (an atelier that trained women artists as well as men over a decade before they were also permitted into L’École des Beaux Arts). There he became the most admired and sought after teacher of American ex-patriots, who came to Paris to study. Among his most famous American students, were Child Hassam and Frank Benson.