SIMON MATHURIN

See also:

• SIMON MATHURIN LANTARA (1729-1778)

LANTARA (1729-1778)  , French landscape painter, was born at Oncy on the 24th of March 1729 . His father was a weaver, and he himself began life as a herdboy; but, having attracted the notice of Gille de Reumont, a son of his master, he was placed under a painter at Versailles . Endowed with great facility and real talent, his powers found ready recognition; but he found the constraint of a regular life and the society of educated people unbearably tiresome; and as long as the proceeds of the last sale lasted he lived careless of the future in the company of obscure workmen . Rich amateurs more than once attracted him to their houses, only to find that in ease and high living Lantara could produce nothing . He died in Paris on the 22nd of December 1778 . His works, now much prized, are not numerous; the Louvre has one landscape, " Morning," signed and dated 1761 . Bernard, Joseph Vernet, and others are said to have added figures to his landscapes and sea-pieces . Engravings after Lantara will be found in the works of Lebas, Piquenot, Duret, Mouchy and others . In 1809 a comedy called Lantara, or the Painter in the Pothouse, was brought out at the Vaudeville with great success . See E . Bellier de la Chavignerie, Recherches sur le peintre Lantara (Paris, 1852) .