Flowers From Normandy (1887)

Henri Fantin-Latour: Flowers From Normandy

Basket of Roses (1880)

Henri Fantin-Latour: Basket of Roses

The Art Lesson (1879)

Henri Fantin-Latour: The Art Lesson

Henri Fantin-Latour (1836-1904) was, at heart, a homebody. While a young man living at home with his family in their Paris apartment he frequently used his parents and two sisters as models. After his marriage he was equally content with his new domestic circle, and used his wife and her sister and their parents as models too. Even the flowers he painted in his well-loved still-lives were often those grown by his wife Victoria Dubourg, who was an avid gardener as well as a respected painter. In this painting Fantin-Latour has painted his two sisters Marie and Natalie drawing and painting a still-life set-up.  Fantin-Latour's father Théodore Fantin-Latour was a professional portrait artist, and probably encouraged his daughters to learn at least the rudiments of art, although nothing is known of their artistic output. [Women in the Act of Painting]

Chrysanthemums (1879)

Henri Fantin-Latour: Chrysanthemums

Dahlias (1878)

Henri Fantin-Latour: Dahlias

Still Life (1876)

Henri Fantin-Latour: White Roses, Chrysanthemums in a Vase, 

Peaches and Grapes on a Table with a White Tablecloth

Henri Fantin-Latour (1875)

 Henri Fantin-Latour: Large Vase of Dahlias and Assorted Flowers

  

Henri Fantin-Latour: White Roses

Still Life with Torso and Flowers (1874)

Henri Fantin-Latour: Still Life with Torso and Flowers

Studio at Batignolles (1870)

Henri Fantin-Latour: Studio at Batignolles

Les Batignolles was the district where Manet and many of the future Impressionists lived. Fantin-Latour, a quiet observer of this period, has gathered around Manet, presented as the leader of the school, a number of young artists with innovative ideas: from left to right, we can recognise Otto Schölderer, a German painter who had come to France to get to know Courbet's followers, a sharp-faced Manet, sitting at his easel; Auguste Renoir, wearing a hat; Zacharie Astruc, a sculptor and journalist; Emile Zola, the spokesman of the new style of painting; Edmond Maître, a civil servant at the Town Hall; Frédéric Bazille, who was killed a few months later during the 1870 war, at the age of twenty-six; and lastly, Claude Monet.

Their attitudes are sober, their suits dark and their faces almost grave: Fantin-Latour wanted these young artists, who were greatly decried at the time, to be seen as serious, respectable figures. Only two accessories remind the spectator of the aesthetic choices of the new school: the statuette of Minerva bears witness to the respect due to the antique tradition; the Japanese style stoneware jar evokes the admiration of this entire generation of artists for Japanese art.

In this group portrait exhibited at the Salon of 1870, each man seems to be posing for posterity. The painting confirms the links between Fantin-Latour and the avant-garde of the time and Manet in particular. It echoes Zola's opinion of Manet: "Around the painter so disparaged by the public has grown up a common front of painters and writers who claim him as a master". In his diary, Edmond de Goncourt sneered at Manet, calling him "the man who bestows glory on bar room geniuses". [Musée d’Orsay]

Still Life (1869)

Henri Fantin-Latour: Still Life

Duchess Fitzjames (1867)

Henri Fantin-Latour: Duchess Fitzjames

Still Life (1866)

Henri Fantin-Latour: Still Life

Flowers (1860)

Henri Fantin-Latour: Flowers

Henri Fantin-Latour (1836-1904; born Ignace Henri Jean Théodore Fantin-Latour) was the 19th century's premier painter of flower still lifes. As a youth, he received drawing lessons from his father, who was an artist. In 1850 he entered the Ecole de Dessin, where he studied with Lecoq de Boisbaudran. After studying at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1854, he devoted much time to copying the works of the old masters in the Musée du Louvre. Although Fantin-Latour befriended several of the young artists who would later be associated with Impressionism, including Whistler and Manet, Fantin's own work remained conservative in style.

Whistler brought attention to Fantin in England, where his still-lifes sold so well that they were "practically unknown in France during his lifetime". In addition to his realistic paintings, Fantin-Latour created imaginative lithographs inspired by the music of some of the great classical composers. [Wikipedia]