Fantin-Latour, (Ignace) Henri (Jean Théodore) (1836–1904)

The French artist Henri Fantin-Latour, together with Symbolist poets Paul Verlaine (1844–1896) and Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891), in a self-portrait. Popular in England for his still-life and flower paintings, Fantin-Latour was on the edge of the Impressionist movement. He painted several portrait groups and, later, some extraordinary figure subjects.

A portrait of a French woman reading, by French painter Henri Fantin-Latour. Popular in England for his still-life and flower paintings, Fantin-Latour was on the edge of the Impressionist movement. He painted several portrait groups and, later, some extraordinary figure subjects fired by his romantic imagination.

French painter. He excelled in delicate still lifes, flower paintings, and portraits. Homage à Delacroix (1864; Musée d'Orsay, Paris) is a portrait group featuring several poets, authors, and painters, including Charles Baudelaire and James McNeill Whistler.

At Whistler's suggestion he visited England and perhaps was influenced by the meticulous detail of the Pre-Raphaelites, though the sincerely executed still lifes and flower-pieces by which he is best known err if anything towards photographic realism. He produced also some allegorical fancies, often carried out in lithography, but it is by virtue of his still life that he has stood the test of time.