Special thanks to the Microsoft Corporation for permission to use following biographical information from Microsoft® Encarta '97:
Henri Fantin-Latour was a French painter, best known for his group portraits and flower paintings. Although he was a contemporary of the impressionists, he practiced a more conservative style, which gave his work an almost photographic realism, and employed a shimmering, magical use of color. In his group portraits, he portrayed the many contemporary Parisian artists and writers who were his friends. His delicately realistic flower paintings, as well as his more stylized lithographs, strongly influenced later symbolist painters, such as Odilon Redon.
