Musée No:792.032
Regular price £25.00Madame Lerolle
Artist: Henri Fantin-Latour
Date:1882
Henri Fantin-Latour (1836 –1904) was a French painter and lithographer best known for his flower paintings, portraits and group portraits of Parisian artists and writers. He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, then from 1854 he devoted himself to copying the works of the old masters in the Louvre. Although he was friends with several artists that would go on to become the “Impressionists”, including Whistler and Manet, his own work remained traditional in style, with the romanticisim of earlier generations. He regularly exhibited with his close friend Édouard Manet and the Impressionists, but he remained committed to traditional studio production and never painted outdoors. Whistler brought attention to Fantin in England, where his still-lifes sold incredibly well. In addition to his realistic paintings, Fantin-Latour created imaginative lithographs inspired by the music of some of the great classical composers. In 1875, Henri Fantin-Latour married a fellow painter, Victoria Dubourg, after which he spent his summers on their country estate in Lower Normandy,
This is the portrait of Mme Madeleine Lerolle, wife of fellow artist Henry Lerolle. She was 26 at the time of painting which was exhibited at the Salon in 1882. There are paintings of her and her daughter by other artists. The Musée d'Orsay in Paris have wonderful very early black and white photographs (circa 1890) of her, her husband and two sons and two daughters in their garden and inside at the piano. How amazing to have been captured both in oil and pastels and in photos.
Random fact: Fantin-Latour's painting "A Basket of Roses" was used as the cover of New Order's album 'Power, Corruption & Lies' in 1983.
