French painter and lithographer best known for his flower paintings and group portraits of Parisian artists and writers. His earliest training was from his father, who was an artist. In 1850 he entered the Ecole de Dessin, where he studied with Lecoq de Boisbaudran. He went on to study at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Although Fantin-Latour befriended several of the young artists who would later be associated with Impressionism, including Whistler and Manet, his own work remained conservative in style. James McNeil Whistler brought attention to his workin England, where his still-lifes were particularly popular. In addition to his realistic paintings, Fantin-Latour created imaginative lithographs inspired by the music of some of the great classical composers. In 1875, Fantin-Latour married a fellow painter, Victoria Dubourg, after which he spent his summers on the country estate of his wife's family at Buré, Orne in Lower Normandy, where he died of lyme disease on 25 August 1904.
