Léon Bonnat

Léon Bonnat trained in Madrid under Federico de Madrazo before settling in Paris to study at the École des Beaux-Arts in 1854. After a scholarship from his native Bayonne enabled him to work in Rome from 1858 to 1861, he began exhibiting at the Salon, building a reputation for powerful naturalistic works in dramatic chiaroscuro that critics compared to Spanish Old Masters like Ribera.