Nadar | The photographer of the Impressionists

Ringmaster, publicist, and performer in a highly theatrical life, the legendary Nadar (Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, 1820-1910) wore many hats - those of journalist, bohemian, left-wing agitator, playwright, caricaturist, and aeronaut.

He had success in all these roles, but what he did best was collect a pantheon of friends whom he honored with his generous and perceptive photographic portraits.

Born Gaspard-Félix Tournachon in 1820, the son of a liberal publisher, Nadar grew up in Paris in the heady ferment of Romanticism.

Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, and Eugène Delacroix were his early heroes; Gérard de Nerval, Théophile Gautier, and Charles Baudelaire his maturing friends. Nadar’s imagination, wit, and spontaneity, like his passion for the colorful, unconventional, and free, were tendencies shared with both generations of Romantic writers and artists.

George Sand (French Romantic writer, 1804-1876) by Nadar, 1864

Pietro Antonio Rotari | A peasant girl In profile wearing a white scarf

Pietro Antonio Rotari 1707-1762) was an Italian painter of the Baroque period.

Born in Verona, he led a peripatetic career, and died in Saint Petersburg, where he had traveled to paint for the Russian court.

His portraits, mostly of women, are renowned for being beautiful and realistic.

Rotari's works were generally limited to royal portraits held by notables such as emperors and court ladies.

Marcel Proust: "Non smettere di cercare ciò che ami, o finiresti per amare ciò che trovi"

• "Dobbiamo essere grati alle persone che ci rendono felici. Sono i premurosi giardinieri che fanno fiorire la nostra anima".

• "Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom".

• "La musica è forse l’esempio unico di ciò che avrebbe potuto essere - se non ci fossero state l’invenzione del linguaggio, la formazione delle parole, l’analisi delle idee - la comunicazione delle anime".

• "La felicità è benefica per il corpo, ma è il dolore che sviluppa i poteri della mente".

• "Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind".

Henri Fantin-Latour | Symbolist painter

Henri Fantin-Latour, in full Ignace-Henri-Jean-Théodore Fantin-Latour, (born Jan. 14, 1836, Grenoble, France-died Aug. 25, 1904, Buré), French painter, printmaker and illustrator noted for his still lifes with flowers and his portraits, especially group compositions, of contemporary French celebrities in the arts.

Fantin-Latour’s first teacher was his father, a well-known portrait painter.

Later, he studied at the school of Lecoq de Boisbaudran and attended the École des Beaux-Arts.

Paul Cézanne | The Card Players series

Paul Cézanne | The Card Players, 1890-1892 | Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The Card Players is a series of oil paintings by the French Post-Impressionist artist Paul Cézanne.

Painted during Cézanne's final period in the early 1890s, there are five paintings in the series.

The versions vary in size, the number of players, and the setting in which the game takes place.