George Martin Lane (1823-1897)

George Martin Lane was a Harvard University professor of Latin who served as the Eliot Professor of Greek Literature from 1851 to 1894. His portrait by Bonnat, painted in 1894, belongs to a category of American academic and institutional portraiture that brought Bonnat considerable transatlantic reputation. Several prominent Americans, including United States presidents, sat for him, and he was regarded as one of the great portraitists of the age on both sides of the Atlantic. The Harvard Art Museums holds the portrait, likely commissioned by Harvard as a commemorative work for Lane's retirement after over forty years of distinguished teaching. The choice of Bonnat over an American portraitist reflects Lane's or Harvard's ambition for a portrait of European distinction and lasting authority.

Oil on canvas with Bonnat's mature technique adapted for an academic sitter. The scholar portrait tradition in European painting favored books and scholarly instruments as attributes of learning, and Bonnat would have incorporated such elements appropriately.