Jacques-Émile Blanche was born in Paris in 1861. His own origins were respectable and bourgeois; he was the son of an eminent pathologist and enjoyed an excellent cosmopolitan education. Blanche was brought up at Passy in a house once belonging to the Princesse de Lamballe. The elegant atmosphere of the home influenced his artistic taste due to its atmosphere of 18th century refinement.

Blanche studied with Gervex and Fernand Humbert as well as spent time in studios of Manet and Degas. The quality of his flat surfaces, the precious grays and silvery light effect causes Jacques-Emile Blanche to be compared more with Manet, whom he admired, than with the Impressionists, with whom he was compared in ter...