This lithograph shows a scene from the opera ‘The Trojans of Carthage’. There are several states of this lithograph which Fantin did c.1894-95. The print is inscribed in Fantin’s hand to ‘Mrs A Edwards’. It was through Fantin’s friendship with Whistler, whom he visited in London in 1859, that he was intoduced to the Edwards whom he met on a subsequent visit in 1861, being introduced to them by the painter W Ridley. Edwards was an accomplished amateur painter and etcher and was keenly interested in art; his wife was a pianist and the couple shared a great love of music which they transmitted to Fantin.
Mr and Mrs Edwards supported Fantin for many years by purchasing and finding buyers for his flower studies some of which were painted on their estate at Sunbury-on-Thames. A portrait of Mrs Edwards was begun on his visit to England in 1861 and completed on a later visit in 1863. A double portrait of Mr and Mrs Edwards was exhibited at the Salon of 1875, now in the Tate Gallery. At the end of the Franco-Prussian war in 1871, Edwards took the contents of Fantin’s studio to sell in England, where the paintings had a great success and Edwards became Fantin’s agent in London; after Edwards death in 1879, Fantin continued to correspond with Mrs Edwards.
