Albert Edelfelt

In 1885 a Finnish painter in Paris talked his way into the laboratory of Louis Pasteur, the chemist then famous across Europe for his new rabies vaccine. Albert Edelfelt painted him standing among his glass jars, holding up a sample of infected spinal cord and studying it, a scientist at work rather than posed. Shown at the Salon the next year, it won Edelfelt the Legion of Honour and became the defining image of Pasteur.

Edelfelt was among the first artists from Finland, then a grand duchy under the Russian tsar, to make a real name abroad. He divided his life between Paris and the Finnish coast, painting his countrymen, the Baltic light and scenes from Finnish history with a realist's eye.

He also used his standing to open doors for the next generation, helping younger Finns like Akseli Gallen-Kallela find their footing in Paris. He was only 50 when he died in 1905, and his funeral in Helsinki drew crowds who treated him as a national figure.