Eventually, thanks in part to the influential art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, his work began to fetch high prices; Benassit's depictions of courtiers and ladies of the 1700s became especially popular.

But beginning in 1882, a progressive paralysis that started in his right arm cut short both his career and his appearances in café society, though by at least one account he learned to paint using his left hand.

Benassit was born in Bordeaux to a French father and English mother, was taken at a young age to London, and returned to France to study painting in Paris under François-Édouard Picot.

Jules-Antoine Castagnary gave high praise to Benassit's 25 illustrations (one for each hour of the day, plus a frontispiece) for Alfred Delvau's Les heures parisiennes, saying the artist, a "Parisian (not by birth, but by temperament and mentality)" displayed "all the finesse and all the crumpled grace that can be possessed by a pretty pencil-line subject to an expeditious hand.

"[9] Paul Arène vividly described the young Benassit and his ability to amuse and enthrall listeners: Small but strong, stocky and broad of face, high-spirited and strong-willed, with a pile of curly hair that gave him a Byronic air—when Bénassit entered, invariably followed by Sprinn, his faithful terrier, we gathered.

And there were endless stories, anecdotes delivered by the basketful: his student days boarding with Pils, and the beautiful and abominable studio pranks his fellows played on him; and, from further back, the strange childhood of a little Frenchman brought up in London: the icy courtyard of his college, where gallophobic school children encircled him, leaping and shouting "Waterloo!

"—and the little French boy, his national pride wounded, but not strong enough for revenge, going slyly every day for months to a hovel on the banks of the Thames, learning to box at the house of a boxer's widow, a toothless old witch, tall and stringy, who knelt to be at his height and pummeled his chest with clenched fists as yellow and hard as boxwood roots.

[10]Étienne Carjat gives another description in his poem "Émile Benassit," dated 1869: Short in stature, a bit stocky, Square forehead, bushy hair, The half-closed eye of a well-sated cat, Wide chin and mouth that laughs... His incisive and cold mind suavely sharpens sarcasm...

The brown eyes were lively and sharp; the forehead, which lighted up at times, betrayed an irascible nature; the smile sparkled with mischief; the lips, which twisted a bit at one corner when he spoke, were charged with irony or bitterness.

And some of Bénassit's words did in fact spring from bitterness or irony; others were quite cheerful, delivering what studio slang calls "la blague" (a joke)...[12]Benassit became a master of the caricature—and was himself the object of spoofing and caricature in the freewheeling French press.

Benassit achieved particular notoriety for his retellings of the fables of La Fontaine, with sly topical references, word-play, and Gallic wit that defy translation.

"[14] The puppeteer Louis Lemercier de Neuville, who recounts a number of these fables in his memoirs, recalls them as "the joy of the ateliers and the artistic and literary meetings.

[17] In 1870, when the enemy laid siege to Paris during the Franco-Prussian War, Benassit put on uniform and served, along with many other writers and artists, in the 61st Battalion of the National Guard, based in Montmartre.

When Monselet's name was called out, and silence followed, Benassit would step forward, present his arms, and gravely intone: "Mort au champ d'honneur!"

An 1875 edition of Laurence Sterne's Voyage Sentimental published by Librairie des Bibliophiles and acquired in 2011 by Princeton University is extra-illustrated with watercolors by Benassit especially commissioned for the volume.

[21] He also illustrated Eugène Chavette [fr]'s Les Petites comédies du vice and Anatole France's first novel, Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard.

Luxury and good humor, such is his motto.…The collection that he delivers to the public today is like the summary of a period of natural elegance and coquetry that exists no longer, except in the realm of memories.

"[7] "The sad part," one observer noted, "is that the paralysis came to freeze his hand at the moment when Durand-Ruel had succeeded in making his paintings reach high prices—which were, in short, only reasonable prices.

[30][31] A generation after Benassit's death, a newspaper would publish this anecdote:Struck with partial paralysis on his right side, he patiently practiced painting with his left hand.

[35] Jules Noriac claimed that Benassit's pranks and jokes detracted from his work as an artist: "Citizen Bénassit is a painter who would have infinite talent if he did not have so much wit.

[40] Benassit's wide reputation as a raconteur and wit in café society, his connections to both the artistic and the literary circles of the day, his considerable success as an artist, and the pathos of his affliction gave him a high profile in the Parisian press for three decades and led to many appearances, from passing mentions to long anecdotes, in memoirs of the era—a trove of information that has yet to be mined by modern scholars, art historians, and biographers.