Henri Fantin-Latour (French, 1836-1904)

By the early 1860s, Henri Fantin-Latour was producing three genres of painting simultaneously that would sustain him throughout his entire career: still life painting, from which he had the most commercial success, portraiture and imaginative or mythological scenes. His imaginative works are often inspired by the artist’s great love of music and are executed with a freedom of draftsmanship and brushwork and the use of a strong, saturated palette.

These sensuous beauties and allegorical or literary scenes were considered by the artist himself to be his best and most important work. They are unique in the development of 19th century European art in that they are not Academic in execution, nor are they fully Impressionistic. Indeed, in the work of Fantin-Latour one can see in him a precursor to the Symbolist movement in their individual expression and dream-like qualities.

In 1880, the author Emile Zola wrote: ‘The canvases of M. Fantin-Latour do not assault your eyes, do not leap at you from the walls. They must be looked at for a length of time in order to penetrate them, and their conscientiousness, their simple truth – you take them in entirely and then you return’ (E. Zola, quoted in Edward Lucie-Smith, Henri Fantin-Latour, New York, 1977, p. 37).

Fantin-Latour’s love of the compositions and operas of Richard Wagner, Hector Berlioz, Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms was nurtured and developed by his wife, fellow artist Victoria Dubourg, who after his death devoted herself fully to preserving his memory, promoting his art, and working on the catalogue raisonné until its publication in 1911.

This painting will be included in the catalogue raisonné of Fantin-Latour's paintings and pastels by Galerie Brame & Lorenceau now in preparation.