The earlier works of Léon Bonnat, who…

The earlier works of Léon Bonnat, who had studied under Federico Madrazo in Madrid and, sponsored by his native city of Bayonne, under Léon Cogniet in Paris, are religious paintings in which his study of Spanish Baroque art is evident.

An influential teacher, his students include Thomas Eakins and Gustave Caillebotte.

In 1875, the forty-two-year-old Bonnat begins on his (better-known) portrait series of prominent Europeans and Americans.