Figures / Genre Scene

Original 17th century German school oil on canvas painting depicting Vertumnus,  allegory of winter, in the form of an elderly woman. High quality work by an artist of the generation of Ottmar Elliger the Younger (1666-1735). A recent cleaning of this work allowed us to discover what seems to be the corner of a red cape at the bottom right corner. This leads us to believe that at some time in its past this portion of canvas might have been salvaged from a larger painting, the lost portion perhaps corresponding to the representation of Pomona, goddess of fruit trees, gardens and orchards in Roman mythology. The representation of the two characters together was very popular in the 17th and 18th centuries. A wax seal on the back of the canvas bears the coat of arms of the town of Lisieux (Normandy).

Vertumnus, whose name means "to turn, to change", was most likely a king of Etruria who, because of the care which he had taken of his fruit orchard and gardens, became a divinity after his death. What is certain is that his cult passed from the Etruscans to Rome where he was considered the god of gardens and orchards. His attributions differed from those of Priapus: he especially watched over the fertility of the earth, the germination of plants, their flowering and the ripening of fruits.

He had the privilege of being able to change form at will like Proteus, and he used this ability to make himself loved by the nymph Pomona, whom he chose for his wife. This happy and immortal couple aged and rejuvenated periodically without ever dying. Vertumnus gave her faith to the nymph and dedicates her inviolable fidelity.
In this fable the allegory is transparent; it clearly represents the year cycle and the uninterrupted succession of seasons. Ovid seems to support this conception of Vertumnus, since he says that this god successively assumed the figure of a plowman, a reaper, a wine grower, finally an old woman, thus designating spring, summer, fall and winter.

Sources: Benezit,Dictionary of Artists; Enciclopaedia Britannica (1911) ; Pierre Commelin, Mythologie grecque et romaine, Ed. Dunod,1999.

Artist: Unknown (unsigned).
Medium: Oil on canvas.
Condition: Very good condition, recent cleaning.
Dimensions : 65 x 51 cm. / 25 ½ x 24 in.
Frame: 79 x 64 cm. / 31 x 25 1/4 in. Gilt wood, very good condition.
Provenance: France.

This genre oil painting of canvas of the later 19th century European school portrays an elderly gardener sitting in a wheelbarrow holding a tool and a plant pot. The origin ofthis painting is likely from the Nordic countries or Germany based on its style. The artist's signature, now partially erased, cannot be identified.

Artist: Unknown.
Signed in the lower left corner.
Medium: Oil on canvas.
Condition: Very good condition.
Dimensions: 46 x 33 cm. / 18 x 13 in.
Frame: 63 x 50 cm / 24 3/4 x 19 3/4 in. Very good condition.
Provenance: Sweden.

This oil painting on canvas, created around 1885 and signed by the Swedish-American painter Alfred Jansson, captures a serene landscape with a young boy fishing in a river. With masterful use of subtle shades, Jansson skillfully evokes the atmosphere of a gloomy forest setting. The piece is elegantly framed with gilded wood and stucco.

Alfred Jansson born in the province of Värmland, Sweden on December 11, 1863. Studied art in Stockholm, Oslo, and Paris. He began his professional career as a landscape painter in Sweden. He immigrated to the United States in 1889 at age 26, settling in Chicago in 1889. He did not, however, become a US citizen until 1922. Jansson continued his art studies in his adopted city and was commissioned to decorate the agricultural building at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1892. The next year, he painted murals in the Swedish Building at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. From 1898 to 1925, he was a prolific exhibitor in the Art Institute of Chicago’s annual exhibitions, showing landscape paintings exclusively. There, he has had an impressive 85 paintings displayed and is best remembered for his landscapes of Illinois, particularly spring and winter scenes.

Jansson was a part of a large Scandinavian community of painters who lived in Chicago. He became part of a group known as the Illinois Impressionists, worked in oils and occasionally also in watercolors and pastel.  In addition to being a member of the Swedish American Art Association, Jansson was also a member of the Palette and Chisel Club, the Chicago Arts Club, Svenska Konstnärer, the Chicago Society of Artists, the Chicago Painters and Sculptors Association, and the Art League of Chicago. He was particularly active in the local community of Swedish-American artists. He was represented in “American Painters of Swedish Descent,” an exhibition that traveled to New York and three cities in Sweden before appearing at the Art Institute in 1920. Alfred Jansson died in Chicago on September 4, 1931.

Artist: Alfred Jansson (1863-1931).
Signed in the lower left corner.
Medium: Oil on canvas.
Condition: Very good condition.
Dimensions: 57 x 44 cm. / 22 1/2 x 17 1/4 in.
Frame: 81 x 68 cm. / 32 x 26 3/4 in. Very good condition.
Origin: Sweden.

This oil on canvas is a portrait from 1887 by British artist Alfred Mendoza. It features a young woman smoking a cigarette in a relaxed manner, most likely Elizabeth Mendoza, the artist's sister. Elizabeth was married to Moses Coronel Pereira, a cigar manufacturer, and they lived in the same area as Alfred, which was home to a large Jewish community and poor immigrants. This work is signed and dated in the lower left corner. Original frame in gilt wood and plaster. An incomplete label on the back identifies the Roberts Gallery located at 759 Yonge St. in Toronto. Founded in 1842, by 1870 it was a renowned gallery dealing with British, European and Canadian art and producing high-quality frames. Throughout its 180 years of activity to date, it has had different locations within the same city, the one on Yonge St. corresponding to the period from 1948 to the late 1950s.

Alfred Moses "Mordecai" Mendoza was an English painter and sculptor of Spanish-Sephardic Jewish origin whose ancestors emigrated from Seville in the 18th century. Born in 1860 in Spitalfields, a district of the East End of London, his father was a keeper of the Jewish cemetery at Mile End, London, activity that Alfred also did for an indeterminate time. Little is known of his life and artistic training, but he is listed as an artist in the 1881 census and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1887 and in Cannes, France in 1907. Married in 1897 to Annie Harriet Dobby, the Mendoza family resided in Tynemouth, Northumberland, but has also lived in France, South America, and Bournemouth, a seaside resort town near Dorset, England. In the 1901 census he is listed as an artist, painter and sculptor. His pictorial work covers almost exclusively portraits and genre scenes, among them, the portrait he made of His Majesty King George V in 1917. Alfred Mendoza died in 1925 in the Kensington area of London.

His son Montague Philip Mendoza (1898-1973) was also a painter, as well as a comic book artist, illustrator, and political cartoonist who sometimes worked under the pseudonyms Flam or Flambo. Born in Dalston, East London, he served as a private in the British Army from 1914 to 1920. After World War I and during World War II, he became a popular poster designer. In 1951 he became a comic book artist, achieving great popularity.

Also noteworthy, Alfred Mendoza was the great-grandson of Daniel Mendoza (1764-1836), a prominent and well-regarded English boxer and boxing instructor in the 1780s and 1790s. The British actor and comedian Peter Sellers (1925-1980) was also a direct descendant of the boxer.

Sources: Wikipedia; Art Uk; England Census; Bearalley; Lambiek; Dictionary of Neglected Artist Working 1880-1950; Roberts Gallery, Toronto.

Artist: Alfred Mendoza (1860-1925).
Signed and dated in the lower left.
Medium: Oil on canvas.
Condition: Very good condition.
Dimensions: 51 x 41 cm. / 20 x 16 in. 
Frame: 71 x 61 cm. / 28 x 24 in. Very good condition.
Provenance: Ottawa, Canada.

This elegant oil painting by Claudine Deseglise captures the mundane scene of an afternoon at the racecourse, probably at Longchamps in Paris. Exhibited in 1953 at the Salon des Independants, this original piece is signed by the artist and displayed in a modern black wood frame. A timeless and captivating addition to any art collection. 

Claudine Marie Jeanne Deseglise was a French naïf painter. She was born on 7 December 1917 in Vire (Calvados), where her father, a military doctor, was stationed during the war. She studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. She had her studio in Montmartre and exhibited regularly at the Salon des Indépendants between 1937 and 1953. Her work mainly comprised genre scenes and still lifes.

Claudine Deseglise died on 24 August 1990 in Neuilly-sur-Seine.

Source: Dictionnaire des peintres à Montmartre, Roussard 1999; Archives de France.

Artist: Claudine Deseglise (1917-1990).
Signed in the lower right corner.
Medium: Oil on canvas.
Condition: Very good condition.
Dimensions: 65 x 54 cm. / 25 1/2 x 21 1/4 in.
Frame: 68,5 x 57,5 cm. / 7 x 22 3/4. Very good condition with some signs of use.
Provenance: Sweden.

This oil on cardboard painting, created around 1880 by German artist Gerta Schlauch, captures a genre scene of a priest scolding two children for stealing apples. Despite our efforts, we were unable to obtain any biographical information about the artist. The piece is signed in the lower right corner and has been well-maintained, with signs of loss of the pictorial layer fully consolidated in a probably recent restoration. It is framed in a gilt wooden frame from the late 20th century.

Artist: Gerta Schlauch.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Medium: Oil on cardboard.
Condition: Very good condition.
Dimensions: 47 x 40 cm. / 18 1/2 x 15 3/4 in.
Frame: 59 x 52 cm. / 123 1/4 x 20 1/2 in. Very good condition.
Provenance: Sweden.

Quaint scene representing a young hunter negotiating his catch of birds with a young woman. Circa 1750 oil on canvas, relined. Spectacular Louis XV gilt wood and stucco frame, richly worked with a shiny and matte patina. Very good condition.

Copy of the original painting by Gaspard Gresly, currently lost or missing, made by his younger brother Nicolas Gresly (1724-1788), painter and art dealer, who worked in his brother's studio and made several copies of his most famous paintings. He also produced paintings for the small altars of the Besançon seminary in 1766.

Gaspard Gresly was born in Isle-sur-le-Doubs (Franche-Comté) on January 8, 1712, into a family of Swiss workers employed in a glass factory. He instinctively became a painter and succeeded above all in trompe-l'oeil and candlelight effects. He specialized in portraits with a local flair, still lifes and especially the painting of daily life intimate scenes of the bourgeoisie or wealthy peasant families. Protégé of the Count of Caylus, an illustrious Parisian patron, he quickly acquired a loyal clientele both in Franche-Comté and in Paris. He died in Besançon (Doubs) on February 17, 1756, at the age of 44, in a state of near misery. Most of his surviving paintings are part of the Besançon Museum of Fine Arts collection.

Source: Benezit, Dictionary of Artists; Dictionnaire des Artistes et Ouvriers d'Art de la Franche-Comté, 1912; Archives de France.

Artist: Nicolas Gresly (1724-1788).
Unsigned.
Medium: Oil on canvas.
Condition: Very good condition. Recently restored.
Dimensions: 77 x 62 cm. / 30 ¼ x 24 ½ in.
Frame: 96 x 83 cm. / 37 ¾ x 32 ¾ in. Gilt wood and stucco, very good condition.
Origin: France.