Fantine

Fantine is a fictional character in Victor Hugo's 1862 novel Les Misérables. She is a young orphaned grisette in Paris who becomes pregnant by a rich student. After he abandons her, she is forced to look after their child, Cosette, on her own. Originally a pretty and naïve girl, Fantine is eventually forced by circumstances to become a prostitute, selling her hair and front teeth, losing her beauty and health. The money she earns is sent to support her daughter.

Fantine became an archetype of self-abnegation and devoted motherhood. Possibly due to her status as an orphan, Hugo never labels her with a surname. She has been portrayed by many actresses in stage and screen versions of the story and has been depicted in works of art.

Fantine in the novel

Description

Hugo introduces Fantine as one of four beautiful girls attached to young, wealthy students. "She was called Fantine because she had never been known by any other name..." Hugo describes her as having "gold and pearls for her dowry; but the gold was on her head and the pearls in her mouth." He elaborates: "Fantine was beautiful, without being too conscious of it.... She was beautiful in the two ways—style and rhythm. Style is the form of the ideal, rhythm is its movement."

Fantine (musician)

Fantine (born Fantine Maria Pritoula; 6 February 1984) is a Russian-born Australian multilingual singer/songwriter of Russian and Dominican descent. Fantine is currently residing in Miami, Florida. She made her musical debut on the Australian indie music scene in 2010 as a featured artist in a collaboration with Space Invadas (Katalyst and Steve Spacek) resulting in the soulful, jazz-inspired single, Super Sweet.

In 2011, Fantine announced Rubberoom (2011) as her first solo release. The song was also aired on Australian national television programs including Rage and Video Hits, and was awarded "Indie Video Clip of The Week." Since then, Fantine has gone on to release singles Eleven (2011) and Perfect Strangers (2011), produced in the UK by Gorillaz producer, Jason Cox, and Don't Come Around (2012), recorded in Australia and produced by UK producer, Lee Groves.

In 2013, Fantine began working on her debut album, I Am Fantine (2015), with 19-time Grammy Award-winning producer, Emilio Estefan, and seven-time Grammy Award winning singer/songwriter Gloria Estefan, who also co-wrote two of her songs. The Estefans curated and helped develop Fantine’s Bachata de Rosa (2014) and Reservation for Two (2014), which landed the No. 5 spot on Billboard's Dance Song Chart.

Fantine (painting)

Fantine is a painting by Margaret Bernadine Hall (1863–1910) hanging in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, England. It is executed in oil on canvas, and measures 157 cm by 116.2 cm.

History

The subject of the painting is Fantine, a character in Victor Hugo's novel Les Misérables. It was painted in Paris in 1886, the year following Victor Hugo's death, and received an honourable mention from the Société des Femmes Peintres. The following year some of Hall's paintings were shown at exhibitions in Vienna, Chicago, London and Manchester, and it is likely that Fantine was among them. After Hall's death in 1910, her brother Sir Douglas Bernard Hall offered the painting to the National Gallery, London, but it was declined. During the following year he offered it to the Walker Art Gallery, where it was accepted. In 1988 the painting was restored in the Harriet Owen Hughes Conservation Centre in Bluecoat Chambers, Liverpool, and as of 2012, it hangs at the head of the main staircase of the Walker Art Gallery.