Jean-Jacques Henner

1829-1905

Jean-Jacques Henner was a French painter born in Bernwiller, Alsace, in 1829. He studied under Michel Martin Drolling and François-Édouard Picot at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he won the Prix de Rome in 1858 with a painting of Adam and Eve finding Abel's body. After years in Rome studying Renaissance masters, he returned to Paris and established himself as a leading academic painter, known for his sophisticated use of sfumato and chiaroscuro in nudes, religious subjects, and portraits. His Saint Fabiola (1885) became his most iconic work, copied by artists worldwide for devotional purposes. Henner exhibited regularly at the Salon, gained successive honours in the Legion of Honour, and in 1889 succeeded Cabanel at the Institut de France. He also taught, notably running a studio for women excluded from the official École. He died in Paris in 1905.