Jean Baptiste Louis Gros was the son of Antoine Jean Gros, a painter and portraitist to Napoleon Bonaparte and given the title of baron by King Charles X in 1830. Gros developed a diplomatic career that took him to several countries in Europe, the Americas, and the Orient throughout his life, being commissioned by King Louis-Philippe of France to attend to affairs in New Granada in 1839, in relation to the construction of the Panama Canal and disputes over American goods.