Romeo and Juliet: Confiding in the Night
Medium
Lithograph in black on ivory China paper laid down on white wove paper
Dimensions
Image: 22.6 × 15.2 cm (8 15/16 × 6 in.); Sheet: 30.8 × 21.3 cm (12 3/16 × 8 7/16 in.)
Classification
lithograph
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
44107
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Henri Fantin-Latour, adapting a scene from Hector Berlioz’s 1839 dramatic symphony Roméo et Juliette, showed the young Juliette, with her gaze cast skyward and her hand placed over her heart, as she stands at her balcony awaiting her lover, Roméo. This evanescent lithograph uses deep shadows and blurred, murky line work to heighten the sense of anticipation the viewer feels along with Juliette.
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 ...