Léon Bonnat

Born in Bayonne, France, Léon Joseph Florentin Bonnat (1833–1922) spent his formative years from 1846 to 1853 in Madrid, where his father owned a bookshop. It was there, copying engravings of Old Masters, that his passion for drawing ignited. He trained under Madrazo in Madrid, absorbing the techniques of Spanish masters like Velázquez and Jusepe de Ribera, as well as Titian and Van Dyck, whose works he studied in the Prado. This early immersion placed him at the forefront o…