Henri Fantin-Latour

Henri Fantin-Latour (1836–1904) was a French painter and printmaker born in Grenoble, first taught by his father before training in Paris under Lecoq de Boisbaudran and at the École des Beaux-Arts, where he copied the Old Masters at the Louvre. Though close friends with Whistler, Manet, and the future Impressionists, his own painting stayed rooted in careful realism. He became renowned above all for still lifes of flowers and fruit, a genre he elevated from its 'minor' academic status, finding especially eager buyers in England and the Netherlands rather than France.