Robert Dessales-Quentin

Large view of Treignac in Corrèze - France

Circa 1930

Joseph LÉPINE (Rochefort 1867 – Paris 1943) The Church of Caillac - Lot Oil on cardboard H. 33 cm; W. 41 cm Signed lower left Joseph Lépine quickly moved to Bordeaux, where he studied under Louis-Alexandre Cabié, a well-known landscape painter in the region and teacher of many early 20th-century artists. Despite the master's warnings, he sought to confront the Parisian modernity of the late 19th century and discover Impressionist and even early Post-Impressionist styles. There, he became a student of the neoclassical painters Courtois and Girardot, both former students of the great Jean-Léon Gérôme. In 1897, he exhibited at the Salon, where he sent landscapes of Provence. He became a member of the Société des Artistes Indépendants in 1905, the same year that the Fauves Matisse, Derain, and Vlaminck participated in and became known at the Salon d'Automne. A purchase by the French government of the 1908 Salon des Indépendants, "Vieille boutique," now housed at the Menton Museum, officially launched his career. He exhibited that year in London at the Royal Albert Hall, at the invitation of the Allied Artists' Association, demonstrating the painter's distinguished status within the international art scene. In Paris, the artist met several well-known painters of the time in the Montmartre and Montparnasse neighborhoods, including Matisse and Signac. His painting is based in particular on his approach to material, light, and color, whose juxtapositions present a play of saturation and composition based on apparent reserves. After the First World War, Lépine returned more to his home region, where he painted landscapes around Bordeaux and up the Dordogne River to the charming landscapes of the lower Corrèze. He painted Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne, Argentat, and also the Lot region, with the built-up escarpments of Saint Circq Lapopie. The city of Bordeaux and the French government acquired two of his works, representing a landscape near Verdelais and a view of the Saint-Michel Church in Bordeaux, in 1939 and 1941. Considered today a very important figure in Bordeaux painting...

Antoine-Claude PONTHUS-CINIER (Lyon, 1812 - Lyon, 1885) The Trailer Ferry at Neuville-sur-Ain Oil on canvas H. 54 cm; W. 81 cm Sale stamp lower left. Provenance: 1885, Studio Sale, No. 18 Ponthus-Cinier belongs to what could be defined as the third (and, so to speak, last) generation of neoclassical or historical landscape artists, born in the 1810s and 1820s, such as Félix Lanoüe, Achille Bénouville, Paul Flandrin, Eugène Ferdinand Buttura, and Alfred de Curzon. More specifically, he is considered the leading and most popular representative of the Lyon School of landscape artists around the mid-19th century. A generous, honest, and pleasant companion, Ponthus-Cinier came from a family of merchants on his mother's side and magistrates on his father's. Destined for commerce by his parents, he preferred the artistic path, and after enrolling at the École des Beaux-Arts in Lyon in 1829 and training in Paris with Paul Delaroche, he exhibited his first works at the Lyon Salon of 1839, before participating in the Paris Salon in 1841. That same year, he received the second Prix de Rome for historical landscapes (won by Buttura in 1837, and Bénouville in 1845), beaten by the Versailles artist Lanoüe. To perfect his skills, Ponthus-Cinier then decided to travel to Italy, alone and at his own expense, for a single stay between 1842 and 1844; He discovered the Ligurian coast, Tuscany, Naples, and, of course, Rome and its surroundings, and executed a considerable number of studies (painted sketches or pen and ink sketches) that he used to compose views of Italy throughout his career. Ponthus-Cinier's main qualities probably lie in "the art of illuminating a canvas," as A. Jouve wrote in the 19th century, and in his sense of perspective, sometimes truly extraordinary; however, he seems, most of the time, a little less brilliant in his figures and in the transcription of details. This unsigned canvas...

Wonderful moody French landscape of country house and farm in Yonne by Ronald Greg (British/Canadian, b. 1929), 1969. Signed and dated lower right and on verso. Presented in vintage ...

Rafael Duran Benet (1931-2015) - Dordogne - Oil on canvas panel Oil measurements 33x41 cm. Frame size 42x50 cm. Rafael Duran Benet (Terrassa, 1931 - Barcelona, 2015) is a Catalan pa...