Léon Bonnat
French painter and educator
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(Suggest an Edit or Addition)According to Wikipedia, Léon Joseph Florentin Bonnat was a French painter, Grand Officer of the Légion d'honneur, art collector and professor at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. Early life Bonnat was born in Bayonne, but from 1846 to 1853 he lived in Madrid, where his father owned a bookshop. While tending his father's shop, he copied engravings of works by the Old Masters, developing a passion for drawing. In Madrid he received his artistic training under Madrazo. He later worked in Paris, where he became known as a leading portraitist, never without a commission. His many portraits show the influence of Velázquez, Jusepe de Ribera and other Spanish masters, as well as Titian and Van Dyke, whose works he studied in the Prado, which placed him at the forefront of painting in France in the 1850s, opposing neoclassicism and academicism. Following the period in Spain, Bonnat worked the studios of the history painters Paul Delaroche and Leon Cogniet in Paris. Despite repeated attempts, he failed to win the prix de Rome, finally receiving only a second prize. However, a scholarship from his native Bayonne and support from the Personnaz family allowed him to spend three years in Rome independently where he and Antonin Personnaz became lifetime friends. During his stay in Rome, he also became friends with Edgar Degas, Gustave Moreau, Jean-Jacques Henner and the sculptor Henri Chapu.
