His father was a weaver, and he himself began life as a herdboy; but, having attracted the notice of Gille de Reumont, a son of his master, he was placed under a painter at Versailles.

Endowed with great facility and real talent, his powers found ready recognition; but he found the constraint of a regular life and the society of educated people unbearably tiresome; and as long as the proceeds of the last sale lasted he lived careless of the future in the company of obscure workmen.

Rich amateurs more than once attracted him to their houses, only to find that in ease and high living Lantara could produce nothing.

His works are prized, but lacking in number; the Louvre has one landscape, Morning, signed and dated 1761.

See Émile Bellier de la Chavignerie, Recherches sur le peintre Lantara (Paris, 1852).