HENRI FANTIN-LATOUR | Reines marguerites

Henry C. Gibson, Philadelphia

The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia (a bequest from the above in 1892 and sold: Sotheby Parke Bernet, Inc., New York, October 19, 1977, lot 25A)

Private Collection, United States (acquired at the above sale and sold: Christie's, New York, May 8, 2000, lot 29)

Richard Green Fine Paintings, London (acquired at the above sale)

Acquired from the above

Philadelphia, The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, In This Academy: The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts 1805-1976, 1976, no. 12 (titled Vase de fleurs)

The present picture, with its exceptional crispness and startling realism, demonstrates the best of the artist's expertise in floral compositions. Fantin's depictions of flowers, fruit, crystal and porcelain number among the great examples of trompe l'oeil painting of the late nineteenth century. Collectors throughout Europe marveled at the extraordinary clarity and perfection of detail of these still lifes, which Fantin painted in the three decades preceding his death in 1904. These spectacular pictures earned the artist his place during his lifetime as the premier painter of still lifes and demand for these works continued until the artist's death.  Because of the extraordinary eye for detail that Fantin had developed as a portrait painter, the artist was capable of seeing each flower with remarkable specificity. According to Edward Lucie-Smith, "His belief, academic in origin, that technique in painting was separable from the subject to which the artist applied it, enabled him to see the blooms he painted not as botanical specimens, but as things which, though not necessarily significant in themselves, would generate significant art upon the canvas. At the same time, the naturalist bias of the milieu in which he had been brought up encouraged him to try and give a completely objective description of all the nuances of color and form which he saw in the bouquet he had arranged" (E. Lucie-Smith, Henri Fantin-Latour, New York, 1977, pp. 22-23).  



This painting will be included in the catalogue raisonné of Fantin-Latour’s paintings and pastels by Galerie Brame & Lorenceau now in preparation.