Stanislas Lépine

Brame & Lorenceau, Paris
Arthur Tooth & Sons, London

Robert and Manuel Schmit, Stanislas Lépine, catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint, Paris, 1993, p. 203, no. 497, illustrated

Lined. Recently cleaned. Widely patterned and stable craquelure visible throughout composition. Faint horizontal line visible across lower edge, possibly from old frame abrasion. Under UV: Isolated, few pindots of inpainting in sky at left and right.
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Among Stanislas Lépine’s characteristic views of the Seine, the present work, La Seine devant Saint-Denis, is a spectacular example in terms of scale, quality and strong sense of atmosphere. Although he is not considered to be an Impressionist, Lepine was included in the first Impressionist show in Nadar’s studio in 1874, including Bords de la Seine (1869, Musée d’Orsay, Paris). He was a student of Corot’s, and the master’s influence is demonstrated here through a soft, even palette and the effects of sunlight reflected on the water and the buildings on the riverbank.

Saint-Denis, a suburb north of Paris, was well-known as an industrial  center, with over eighty factories in operation by the end of the nineteenth century and Lépine punctuates this landscape with their tall vertical smokestacks, billowing smoke into the air.