The most celebrated 19th-century French painter of flower still lifes, Fantin-Latour was born at Grenoble, moving with his family to Paris in 1841. He attended the Ecole des Beaux Arts briefly in 1854. He studied in the Louvre, making copies of Old Master paintings, and worked in the studio of Courbet in 1861.
Manet and Whistler were amongst Fantin-Latour's earliest friends and in 1859 he paid the first of many visits to London, where he exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1862. Fantin-Latour was known for his portraits as well as for his flower pieces, and for group portraits celebrating the work of contemporary painters including Manet and Delacroix. His still lifes were exhibited at the Salon from 1866.