Jacques-Emile Blanche was born in Paris and studied under Henri Gervex. He was a portrait painter of note and exhibited at the Paris Salon and at the Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts. He was Director of the Academie de la Palette from 1902 until 1911. Also worked in London from 1870 and became friends with Ricketts and Shannon and others of their circle. He painted portraits of Aubrey Beardsley, Pierre Louys and Yvette Guilbert among many others. Author of “Portraits of a Lifetime” 1937 and “More Portraits of a Lifetime” 1939. He contributed lithographs and prints to a number of journals and portfolios in France throughout the 1890’s, those in colour being amongst the most successful. Ref:Bailly-Herzberg. Dictionnaire de L’Estampe en France. Flammarion. Paris, 1985.