Louis Antoine Léon Riesener (21 January 1808 – 25 May 1878) was a French Romantic painter. Enchanted by the play of light and reflections which transformed the appearance of matter, Riesener began a new aesthetic that made him one of the precursors of impressionism. He was a passionate colourist and researched all the nuances of colour. He studied techniques from ancient Greece and the Renaissance, including Titian, Veronese and Correggio. Impressed by Rubens' research into colour, he considered him the Shakespeare of painting and was greatly inspired by him. Very early in his career Riesener studied tonal divisions, well before the physician Chevreul discovered their scientific basis. His tactile taste led him to look for the most perfect expression of matter and particularly of skin. He