Henry Monnier (1799 – 1877) A Group of Erotic Miniatures
Henry Bonaventure Monnier, artist and playwright, was born 7 June 1799. After studying at the Lycée Bonaparte, he frequented the workshops of the neo-classical artists Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson and Baron Antoine–Jean Gros. Aged just 23, Monnier went to live in London, returning to Paris five years later where he started to encounter and befriend a glittering cast of authors and painters of the time: Alexandre Dumas, Théophile Gautier, Stendhal, Eugène Sue, Prosper Mérimée, Eugène Scribe, Eugène Delacroix, Louis Boulanger and Honoré de Balzac.