Children having fun - François Louis LANFANT dit LANFANT de Metz (1814-1892)

Oil on cardboard Street scene with characters,

on the back labels( look at this)

by François Louis LANFANT said LANFANT of Metz

LANFANT François Louis or Lenfant, known as Lanfant de Metz

Born on August 23, 1814 in Sierk, near Metz (Moselle). Died on May 15, 1892 in Le Havre (Seine-Maritime).

19th century. French.

Painter of religious subjects, animated compositions, genre scenes, gouache painter, draftsman.

He was a student of Ary Scheffer. He went to Africa and took part in the Algerian campaign of General Bugeaud and the Duke of Aumale. Released in 1842, he was hired as a draftsman by the Swiss naturalist Agassiz. He made a trip from Naples to Mulhouse.

Having created a workshop, boulevard des italiens in Paris, he had for pupil Miss Ségalas, daughter of the surgeon of Napoleon III. He lived in England and then in Barbizon. In 1868, he went to Rennes, where he met Gustave Courbet; they both went to Trouville. Lanfant de Metz took a boat to Le Havre, where he met up with a former actress companion, and decided to settle permanently in this city, selling his works to wealthy merchants.

He exhibited at the Paris Salon between 1843 and 1866, presenting among others: 1843 Romulus attacks and defeats the Sabines, 1845 The public gardens under Louis XV, 1846 A flower girl under the Regency, 1847 The new lord and the old vagabond, and The village bride, which won him a gold medal. A retrospective of his work was held at the Musée du Havre in 1926.

He was essentially the painter of genre subjects observed in the world of children, little mischievous kids at home, in nursery schools, in the streets, sometimes accompanied by animals; small scenes whose style recalls that of Louis Leopold Boilly.
We owe him a religious subject, a Saint Barbara, painted in Rennes in 1868. Lanfant de Metz also treated the familiar paintings of the Parisian landscape, with the animation of its small trades.
The success of his subjects, which amateurs used to decorate the walls of their homes, often encouraged the artist to execute them in pairs, more suitable to complete the decoration of a room. The work of the last years of the artist was popularized by the color lithography.

Bibliography: Gérald Schutt, in: Les petits maîtres de la peinture 1820-1920, valeur de demain, Les éditions de l'Amateur, t. III, Paris, 1976.

MUSEUMS: REIMS (Mus. des Beaux-Arts): Head of a young girl.