LANTARA, Simon Mathurin (1729-1778), French landscape painter, was born at Oncy, 24th March 1729. His father was a weaver, and he himself began life as a herdboy; but, having attracted the notice of M. Gille de Reumont, a son of his master, he was taken by him to Paris, and placed under a painter at Versailles. Endowed with great facility and real talent, his powers found ready recognition; he might have amassed fortune and earned distinction, but he could not divest himself of the habits acquired in early childhood. He found the constraint of a regular life and the society of educated people unbearably tiresome; he painted to please himself, and as long as the proceeds of the last sale lasted lived careless of the future in the company of obscure workmen with whom he had made friends. Rich amateurs more than once attracted him to their houses, only to find that in ease and high living Lantara could produce nothing. Fatal sickness came upon him when in extreme indigence; he entered the hospital of La Charité—in which he had previously been the object of the kindliest cares—on the morning of 22d December 1778, and six hours after he was dead. His works, now much prized, are not numerous; the Louvre has one landscape, Morning, signed and dated 1761. As he was not a member of the Academy, his pictures were not admitted to its exhibitions, and notices of his works by his contemporaries are rare. Bernard, Joseph Vernet, and others are said to have added figures to his landscapes and sea-pieces. Engravings after Lantara will be found in the works of Lebas, Piquenot, Duret, Mouchy, and others. In 1809 a comedy called Lantara, or the Painter in the Pothouse, was brought out at the Vaudeville with great success....