Jean-Jacques Henner
French (1829-1905)
Jean-Jacques Henner was born in 1829 in Bernwiller in the south of Alsace. He received his first artistic training from Charles Goutzwiller in Altkirch and later in the studio of Gabriel-Christophe Guérin in Strasbourg. In 1846 he enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris where he studied under Michel-Martin Drolling and François-Edouard Picot. In 1858 Henner won the Grand Prix de Rome, which led to a five-year stay at the Villa Medici in Rome. Here he met other artists including the sculptor Falguière and the composer Bizet. While in Italy Henner also visited Florence, Venice and Naples. In 1889, Henner was elected a member of the Institut de France and in 1903 he was awarded the highest rank in the Order of the Legion of Honor.
Henner’s work is in the MusĂ©e du Luxembourg,  MusĂ©e d’Orsay, Art Institute of Chicago, Hermitage Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.