In spite of his lack of real training, Germain Théodore Ribot (1823-1891) began a career as an artisan, switching in the 1850s to painting still life subjects influenced by the work of Francois Bonvin (1817-1887). Winning medals at the Paris Salon of 1864 and 1865, Ribot, along with Fantin-Latour, James M. Whistler and Alphonse Legros, founded another Salon called the Champs de Mars. Much admired by his fellow artists, Ribot was presented in 1884 with a medal by a group of his friends (including Fantin-Latour, Claude Monet, Jules Bastien-Lepage and Jean-François Raffaelli) which was inscribed simply ‘A Théodule Ribot, le peintre indépendant’.