Symphonie Fantastique: A Ball, from Hector Berlioz, sa vie et ses oeuvres
Medium
Lithograph in black on off-white China paper, laid down on white wove paper (chine collé)
Dimensions
Image: 23.4 × 15.5 cm (9 1/4 × 6 1/8 in.); Sheet: 30.7 × 21.7 cm (12 1/8 × 8 9/16 in.)
Classification
lithograph
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
44091
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
French composer Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique is an epic composition that tells the story of an artist’s unrequited love for a beautiful woman, who was probably based on the Irish actress Harriet Smithson. Here, Henri Fantin-Latour paid homage to the symphony’s second movement, in which the artist, at right, tries to gain the attention of his beloved as the guests of the ball mingle in the background.
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 ...