Victor Gabriel Gilbert

Victor Gabriel Gilbert

French

1847 - 1935

Marché aux fleurs

signed Victor Gilbert (lower left)

oil on canvas

canvas: 25¾ by 21½ in.; 65.4 by 54.6 cm

framed: 35½ by 31 in.; 90.1 by 78.7 cm

Victor Gilbert was celebrated as the foremost painter of Parisian marchés during the final decades of the 19th century, when daily markets proliferated throughout the French capital to satisfy the growing upper and middle classes. 

Born in Paris in 1847, Gilbert's natural ability as an artist was recognized early on, but his family lacked the financial resources to send him to the École des Beaux-Arts. Instead, Gilbert apprenticed with Eugene Adam as an artisan painter and decorator before formally studying with Pierre Levasseur at the École de la ville de Paris.