Oil paint on canvas
Tate Collection
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<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/henri-fantin-latour-1079" aria-label="More by Henri Fantin-Latour" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Henri Fantin-Latour</a>
Mr and Mrs Edwin Edwards
Presented by Mrs E. Edwards 1904
actions: postures and motions
adults
arms folded
artist, painter
arts and entertainment
Edwards, Edwin
Edwards, Elizabeth Ruth
Escombe, Elizabeth Ruth
fine arts and music
individuals: female
individuals: male
man
named individuals
objects
people
picture
portfolio
portraits
sitting
standing
woman
work and occupations
<p>Edwin Edwards was a landscape painter and etcher, and a wealthy collector of art. He and his wife were personal friends of the French painter Fantin-Latour, and helped to promote his work in Britain, especially his paintings of flowers. Fantin was also an associate of Whistler and the Impressionists, and portrayed them in the group portraits now in the Musee d'Orsay in Paris.Fantin's initial idea for this double portrait was to show Mrs Edwards as her husband's inspiration. The painting was exhibited both in the Paris Salon and the Royal Academy.</p><p><em>Gallery label, September 2004</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
5 March 1997
5 March 1997
1997-03-05
National Gallery (London, UK)
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk
1997-03-05
Long Loan to the National Gallery
Loan-out
6 October 2005 – 14 May 2006
2006-05-14
6 October 2005 – 15 January 2006
2006-01-15
2005-10-06
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2005-10-06
Degas, Sickert and Toulouse-Lautrec: London and Paris 1870-1910
Exhibition
21 June 2007 – 28 October 2007
2007-10-28
21 June 2007 – 28 October 2007
2007-10-28
2007-06-21
Fondation de l’Hermitage (Lausanne, Switzerland)
http://www.fondation-hermitage.ch
2007-06-21
Henri Fantin-Latour
Loan-out
11 February 2010 – 2 May 2010
2010-05-02
18 June 2009 – 6 September 2009
2009-09-06
2009-06-18
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian (Lisbon, Portugal)
http://www.museu.gulbenkian.pt/
28 September 2009 – 10 January 2010
2010-01-10
2009-09-28
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza (Madrid, Spain)
2010-02-11
Henri Fantin-Latour (1836 - 1904) Painter of Intimacy
Loan-out
14 September 2016 – 18 June 2017
2017-06-18
14 September 2016 – 12 February 2017
2017-02-12
2016-09-14
Musée du Luxembourg (Paris, France)
18 March 2017 – 18 June 2017
2017-06-18
2017-03-18
Musée de Grenoble (Grenoble, France)
2016-09-14
Henri Fantin-Latour (1836-1904)
Loan-out
2 November 2017 – 14 October 2018
2018-10-14
2 November 2017 – 7 May 2018
2018-05-07
2017-11-02
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
21 June 2018 – 14 October 2018
2018-10-14
2018-06-21
Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris (Paris, France)
2017-11-02
Impressionists in London: French Artists in Exile, 1870-1904
Exhibition
2 November 2017 – 14 October 2018
2018-10-14
20 June 2018 – 14 October 2018
2018-10-14
2018-06-20
Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris (Paris, France)
2017-11-02
Impressionists in London: French Artists in Exile, 1870 - 1904
Loan-out
Mr and Mrs Edwin Edwards
support: 1308 × 981 mm
frame: 1640 × 1313 × 145 mm
Presented by Mrs E. Edwards 1904
<p>Edwin Edwards was a <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/l/landscape" title="Glossary definition for 'Landscape'"><span>landscape</span></a> painter and <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/e/etching" title="Glossary definition for 'Etching'"><span>etcher</span></a>, and a wealthy collector of art. He and his wife were personal friends of the French painter Fantin-Latour, and helped to promote his work in Britain, especially his <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>paintings</span></a> of flowers. Fantin was also an associate of Whistler and the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/i/impressionism" title="Glossary definition for 'Impressionism'"><span>Impressionists</span></a>, and portrayed them in the group <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/portrait" title="Glossary definition for 'Portrait'"><span>portraits</span></a> now in the Musee d'Orsay in Paris.</p><p>Fantin's initial idea for this double portrait was to show Mrs Edwards as her husband's inspiration. The painting was exhibited both in the Paris <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/s/salon" title="Glossary definition for 'Salon'"><span>Salon</span></a> and the Royal Academy.</p>
Display caption
2004-09-02T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>Henri Fantin-Latour</b> 1836-1904</p>
<p><a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/fantin-latour-mr-and-mrs-edwin-edwards-n01952" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N01952</span></a> <b>Mr and Mrs Edwin Edwards</b> 1875</p>
<p>Inscribed 'à | mon ami | E. Edwards | Fantin | 1875' t.r. 
<br/>Oil on canvas, 51 1/2 x 38 5/8 (130.5 x 98) 
<br/>Presented by Mrs Edwin Edwards to the National Gallery 1904; transferred 1954 
<br/><i>Prov</i>: Mr and Mrs Edwin Edwards, Sunbury and London 
<br/><i>Exh</i>: Paris Salon, May-June 1875 (784); Exposition Générale des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, August-October 1875 (459); RA, London, May-August 1876 (86); Internationale Kunst-Ausstellung, Kgl. Glaspalast, Munich, July-October 1879 (265); Exposition Centennale (Exposition Universelle), Paris, May-November 1889 (338) 
<br/><i>Lit</i>&lt;: Ph. Burty, 'Edwin Edwards. Peintre de Paysages et Aquafortiste' in <i>L'Art</i>, IV, 1879, pp.170-2; Duranty, 'Edwin Edwards, Peintre et Aquafortiste' in <i>Gazette des Beaux-Arts</i>, November 1879, pp.439-40; Adolphe Jullien, <i>Fantin-Latour: sa Vie et ses Amitiés</i> (Paris 1909), pp.20-6, 38-40, 45-6, 76-7, 86-7, 92-3, repr. facing p.84; Mme Fantin-Latour, <i>Catalogue de l'Oeuvre Complet (1849-1904) de Fantin-Latour</i> (Paris 1911), No.738, p.81; Frank Gibson, <i>The Art of Henri Fantin-Latour</i> (London n.d.), pp.54-60, 92, 178, repr. p.69; Martin Davies, <i>National Gallery Catalogue of the French School</i> (London 1946), p.45 
<br/><i>Repr: Burlington Magazine</i>, VI, 1905, p.493; Edward Lucie-Sinith, <i>Fantin-Latour</i> (Oxford 1977), pl.32 
</p><p>Edwin Edwards (1823-79), lawyer, <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/l/landscape" title="Glossary definition for 'Landscape'"><span>landscape</span></a> painter and <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/e/etching" title="Glossary definition for 'Etching'"><span>etcher</span></a>, married Elizabeth Ruth Escombe (<i>c</i>.1833-1907) in 1852.</p>
<p>With his wife's encouragement, he gave up a large and successful practice as a lawyer to devote his time to art, exhibiting regularly at the Royal Academy from 1861 to 1879 (there is one of his pictures in the Tate Gallery [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="/art/artworks/N01690" onclick="popTateObjects(event, -1, 'N01690');" title="View details of this artwork"><span>N01690</span></a>]). His particular passion was etching, which he had begun under the influence of Legros, and it was while in Paris in 1861 to arrange for the printing of his first plates that he was introduced to Fantin by the English painter Matthew White Ridley. The two were soon on very friendly terms and when Fantin visited England later the same year he accepted an invitation to spend a month with Mr and Mrs Edwards at Sunbury-on-Thames; he also stayed with them when he came to England again in 1864. During his first visit in 1861 he began a <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/portrait" title="Glossary definition for 'Portrait'"><span>portrait</span></a> of Mrs Edwards in a white dress which he left unfinished at the time of his departure and completed in 1864; it is now in the Petit Palais in Paris (Mme Fantin-Latour No.236). And in 1864 he also made an etching, 'A Piece by Schumann', of Edwin Edwards playing the flute and Mrs Edwards accompanying him at the piano (Mme Fantin-Latour No.262; G. Hédiard, <i>Fantin-Latour, Catalogue de l'Oeuvre <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/l/lithography" title="Glossary definition for 'Lithography'"><span>Lithographique</span></a> du Maître</i>, Paris 1906, Appendix No.2).</p>
<p>The project to paint a double portrait of Mr and Mrs Edwards is described by Fantin in a letter to Edwin Edwards of 26 November 1874. His original intention was to depict Edwards seated at his etching table, etching with the tools, and Mrs Edwards standing beside him 'like a guardian angel', the inspiring Muse; there would be a background of a studio, with <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/canvas" title="Glossary definition for 'Canvas'"><span>canvases</span></a>, frames, etc. The portrait, which was painted in Fantin's studio in Paris, 8 Rue des Beaux-Arts, is however rather simpler: there is a plain background and Edwards is shown with one arm resting on a folio of <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/print" title="Glossary definition for 'Print'"><span>prints</span></a>, studying an etching. When it was exhibited at the Paris <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/s/salon" title="Glossary definition for 'Salon'"><span>Salon</span></a> of 1875 it was awarded a second class medal, which meant that Fantin, whose works had earlier been rejected on several occasions, was henceforth hors concours, and could exhibit works without submitting them to the Jury.</p>
<p>Later, in 1879, he made a <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/d/drawing" title="Glossary definition for 'Drawing'"><span>drawing</span></a> of Edwin Edwards after part of this picture (Mme Fantin-Latour No.972), and in 1892 a similar lithograph of Edwin Edwards alone which was published in <i>The Albemarle</i>, June 1892 (Mme Fantin-Latour No.1494; G. Hédiard No.102).</p>
<p>Edwin Edwards began in 1871 to act as an English agent for Fantin and was able to sell a number of his <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/s/still-life" title="Glossary definition for 'Still life'"><span>still lifes</span></a> to English collectors. This friendly business relationship, which was continued by Mrs Edwards after her husband's death, did much to establish Fantin's reputation in this country and to relieve him of his financial worries.</p>
<p><b>Published in</b>: 
<br/>Ronald Alley, <i>Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists</i>, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, pp.216-17, reproduced p.216</p>

Catalogue entry
2004-09-15T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
actions: postures and motions adults arms folded artist, painter arts and entertainment Edwards, Edwin Edwards, Elizabeth Ruth Escombe, Elizabeth Ruth fine arts and music individuals: female individuals: male man named individuals objects people picture portfolio portraits sitting standing woman work and occupations