It was during a stay in Paris in 1866 that Fortuny became friendly with the French academic painters, notably Jean-Léon Gérome and Ernest Meissonier. He also signed a contract with the influential Parisian dealer Goupil. This agreement, giving Goupil exclusive rights to Fortuny's work, proved to be financially remunerative, but was later felt by the artist to be an impediment to his development. It was, however, thanks to an exhibition held by Goupil in 1870 that Fortuny had his first great success. The show was a sensation, not only for the Orientalist paintings, but also for his stylish recreations of the eighteenthcentury rococo period and genre scenes, whose brilliant technique and strong colours had a great impact on young painters. Amongst his most fervent admirers was Henri Regnault "Ile's the master of us all... Ah, Fortuny, I can't rest because of you!" and Georges Clairin, with whom the Catalan artist visited Tangiers and Tetuan in 1871. Fortuny had such a convivial personality that he was always surrounded by followers and friends. In Paris, he had an entourage of his compatriots, while in Rome, he was so solicited by artists, travellers and collectors that he scarcely had time to work. An enthusiastic collector (a passion shared by his close friends Gustave Doré and Édouard de Beaumont), he filled his studio with arms, textiles, tapestries, carpets, bronzes and faiences. While his pictures were so sought after that he painted repetitions, his most important patron was William Hood Stewart, an American from Philadelphia, whose Paris house was a haven for Spanishspeaking artists. Stewart began buying Fortuny paintings at Goupil's gallery in Paris and, later, during the Franco-Prussian war, in the dealer's temporary gallery in London. He obtained an introduction to Fortuny through Raymundo de Madrazo, Fortuny's brother-in-law, and bought one of his watercolours. Stewart purchased more paintings at Fortuny's studio sale and invited people to see his private collection. This meant that a number of paintings by Fortuny and his followers entered the collections of Stewart's fellow Philadelphians. Others, from the 1898 posthumous Stewart sale in New York, are now in American public collections, including (Arab Fantasia) Fantasia arabe (illustrated here) and Café des hirondelles (Café o/ the Swallows) (Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore). Although Stewart's collection was borrowed for the 1878 Universal Exhibition in Paris, the very fact of this patronage meant that Fortuny's work was not well-known to the European public. This was partly due, also, to Goupil's practice of showing pictures only to a limited circle of people who purchased them for their private collections, and to Fortuny's reluctance to exhibit at the Paris Salon.
The news of Fortuny's death from fever at the age of thirty-six stunned artistic circles throughout Europe for he was widely acclaimed as an artist, and held in esteem and affection by his colleagues. He was to have an enormous influence on generations of painters, particularly Spanish and Italian, who sought to emulate his remarkable technical skill.
Literature: C. Davillier, Fortuny, sa vie, son æuvre, sa correspondance, Paris, 1875; Fortuny y Madrazo, Mariano Fortuny, Milan, 1931; L.-G. Fillol, Fortuny, Barcelona, 1952; F. Pompey, Mariano Fortuny, Madrid, 1958; J. Folch i Torres, Fortuny, Reus, 1962; W.R. Johnston, "W.H. Stewart, the American patron of Mariano Fortuny," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Paris, March 1971; J. Costa Clavell, Fortuny, Barcelona, 1973;
Exhibitions: Fortuny and his Circle, Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, 1970; Mariano Fortuny et ses antis français, Musée Goya, Castres, 1974.