Debut from "Paradise and the Peri" (2nd plate)
Medium
lithograph on Chinese paper
Classification
Department
CG-E
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Rosenwald Collection
Accession Number
1943.3.3728
Art Historical Context
Henri Fantin-Latour's *Debut from "Paradise and the Peri" (nd plate)*, created in 1894, is a captivating lithograph on Chinese paper from the artist's evocative series illustrating Thomas Moore's Romantic poem *Lalla Rookh*. This Orientalist tale follows a peri—a mythical winged spirit—seeking redemption by bringing a gift worthy of Paradise's gates. Fantin-Latour, a French Realist painter renowned for his intimate portraits and still lifes, turned to lithography in the 1870s and 1880s to explore literary themes poetic delicacy. The second plate captures the "debut" moment, likely evoking per...
About the Artist
Henri Fantin-Latour · 1836–1904
Ignace Henri Jean Théodore Fantin-Latour was born on January 14, 1836, in Grenoble, France, to portrait painter Théodore Fantin-Latour, who gave him his earliest drawing lessons. The family relocated to Paris in 1841, where in 1850, at age 14, he enrolled in the École de Dessin, studying under Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran, whose innovative memory-based method of drawing from observation profoundly ...