Still Life: Corner of a Table

Henri Fantin-Latour (French, 1836–1904)

1873

Medium
Oil on canvas
Classification
Painting
Dimensions
96.4 × 125 cm (37 15/16 × 49 3/16 in.); Framed: 122 × 152.4 × 9.6 cm (48 × 60 × 3 3/4 in.)
Culture
France
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago, Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Credit line
Ada Turnbull Hertle Endowment
Rights
Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
Who can see it
Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed

View at the Art Institute of Chicago

About this work

This canvas, exhibited at the Salon of 1873, relates to Henri Fantin-Latour’s largest and most famous painting of the decade, The Corner of a Table (1872; Musée d’Orsay, Paris), an immense composition that includes detailed portraits of several young Parisian poets and writers. The table around which they are posed displays many of the still-life elements featured in this work. The delicate rhododendron plant reflects the influence of Japanese prints, from its dramatic silhouette against the neutral backdrop of the white tablecloth to its unusual placement in the foreground, emphasizing the scene’s unorthodox cropping.

Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0