Ignace Henri Jean Fantin-Latour

(January 14, 1836 - August 25, 1904)

Ignace Henri Jean Fantin-Latour (January 14, 1836 - August 25, 1904) was a French painter and lithographer. Born Henri Jean Theodore Fantin-Latour in Grenoble, Rhone-Alpes, France, he studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He is best known for his flower paintings and group portraits of his friends Parisian artists and writers. His work strongly influenced the symbolist movement of the late 19th Century.

Whistler brought attention to Fantin in England. In addition to his paintings, Fantin-Latour created ingenious lithographs demonstrating the music of some of the great classical composers. In 1876, Henri Fantin-Latour married a fellow painter, Victoria Dubourg, after which he spent his summers on the country estate of his wife's family at Bure, Orne in Basse-Normandie, where he died of lyme disease. He was interred in the Cimetiere du Montparnasse, Paris, France. Today, his paintings can sell for as much as US$2.5 million each. (From Wikipedia)