Jean Claude Dumont

Field flowers: exuberant floral still life in a rustic landscape country scene

circa 1870

The setting is the French coast, on a tranquil summer's evening. Clouds are drawing in, the sky is turning dusky pink and purple, but there is still time left for play, for the children on the beach...

This rare mythological scene depicting the Greek author Homer on the island of Scyros. You will notice the Trojan War being fought in the background. Our painting, dating from 1864, is unsigned, but has a solid attribution to academic artist Henri-Léopold Lévy...

It's just a little embarassing. Our young bather went for a skinny dip in the river and now needs to snatch her clothes without being spotted by the elderly artist on the river bank ...

Here is a painting that will lift you - one feels happy every time one looks at it. It is such a lovely, unusual twist to the theme of the floral still life: here we have flowers, not in a vase, but attached to a wooden front door. I wonder if the artist did this with actual flowers, perhaps for a sweetheart, and then decided to paint the scene? At any rate: who wouldn't want to come home to find a large bunch of glorious lilac as they come home? The artist is Emile Baudoux (1850 -1929), who studied with Humbert and Cabanel. Paris-born, he liked to work in Normandy, where he had his studio. He exhibited his work at the "Salon des Artistes Français" until 1927, where he obtained a gold medal in 1910. The important oil on canvas presented here, dating from 1901, may have been shown at the Salon, as it bears an exhibition number "30" at the upper right of the canvas. It is signed and dated at the lower left as seen in the photos. Measuring 81 x 60 cm, the overall size including its original large oak frame...