Portrait of a Woman

Henri Fantin-Latour

1885 · Oil on canvas · European Paintings

A notebook kept by Fantin’s wife is said to record the circumstances surrounding this picture. The sitter called herself Mme Leroy, a name the artist suspected was false; and she insisted on paying for her portrait in advance. She was accompanied to some of her sittings by an American named Becker, who also commissioned a likeness of himself from Fantin, dated the following year (Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Mass.). The couple’s full identities, and the nature of their relationship, remain unknown.

Artist

Henri Fantin-Latour

Date

1885

Medium

Oil on canvas

Department

European Paintings

Credit line

Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection, Wolfe Fund, 1910