Portraits

This magnificent pastel painting depicts Madame de Bled sitting in a armchair. She is adorned in a beautiful silk dress with a plethora of blue ribbons, as well as a delicate lace headdress, representing the fashion of the late Louis XV and early Louis XVI eras. Crafted by an unidentified but skilled artist, this portrait from approximately 1770 includes a gilded wooden frame and has been meticulously restored. The pastel on paper is mounted on acid-free cardboard and is accompanied by an original handwritten biography of the subject.

Marie Elisabeth Anne de Bled was born in Quebec, Canada, on 13 February 1720. She was daughter of Charles de Bled, a royal surveyor from Normandy, France. Orphaned of father at the age of 5 and of mother at 14, she married before her 15th birthday to the merchant Jean Baptiste de Lagroix, 13 years her senior, with whom she had three children. Widowed in 1747, she remarried on 23 October 1753 (and not in 1750 as the label indicates) to Jean François Jacquelin, merchant and shipowner, with whom she had a son. The family relocated to France in 1766, after the cession of Quebec to Great Britain, and settled in La Rochelle, where Elisabeth de Bled died on 29 April 1798, aged 78.

Source: Archives de France.

Artist: Unknown (unsigned).
Medium: Pastel on paper.
Condition Excellent condition.
Dimensions : 58 x 48 cm. / 22 3/4 x19 in.
Frame: 72 x 62 cm. / 28 1/4 x 24 1/2 in. Gilt wood, very good condition.
Origin: France.

This oil painting, created by an anonymous artist circa 1920, depicts Claude Denis Laussedat, a prominent merchant and member of the French bourgeoisie. Laussedat, born on May 11, 1778 in Riom (Puy-de-Dôme), was the son of a master shoemaker and passed away in the same town on December 16, 1847.

The painting has been professionally relined and restored, showcasing its exceptional quality. Although the birth year on the label is incorrect, according to his official birth record, it still indicates the identity of the sitter. The painting is presented in a Restoration period frame.

Source: Archives de France. 
  
Artist: Unknown.
Unsigned.
Medium: Oil on canvas.
Condition: Very good. Recently relined and restored.
Dimensions: 66 x 55 cm. / 26 x 21 ¾ in.
Frame: 81 x 70 cm. / 32 x 27 ½ in. Gilt wood and stucco, 19th century. Very good condition.
Origin: France.

This oil painting depicts a man in military attire, believed to be an infantry officer in the National Guard during the reign of King Louis-Philippe. The subject is portrayed with a handsome appearance, featuring blue eyes, a mustache, and dressed in a dark blue coat adorned with scarlet details, epaulettes, and silver grenadier buttons.

Painted oil on canvas by an unidentified artist circa 1830, this piece has been recently relined and professionally restored. It comes with its original and rare gilt wood, gesso, and sand textured frame, making it a valuable addition to any collection of military portraits or 19th century decor.

Artist: Anonymous (unsigned).
Medium: Oil on canvas.
Condition: Very good condition.
Dimensions: 74 x 60 cm. / 29 x 23 ½ in.
Frame: 88 x 74 cm. / 34 ½ x 29 in. Very good condition.
Origin: France.

This is a stunning portrayal of a sophisticated woman. The subject is shown in a half-length profile, set against a draped backdrop while gazing towards the viewer. She is adorned in a beautiful blue evening gown adorned with delicate floral designs, accompanied by a yellow chiffon shawl and a long white glove held in her left hand.

This unsigned oil on canvas from the 1830s is a representative piece of French Romanticism movement and is believed to be from the circle of renowned painter Louis Hersent (Paris, 1777-1860). It has been relined and restored and is presented in an exquisite gilt frame in the French Empire style, complete with intricate palmettes.

Artist: Circle of Louis Hersent (1777-1860).
Unsigned.
Medium: Oil on canvas. 
Condition: Very good condition.
Dimensions: 81.5 x 66 cm. / 32 x 26 in.
Cadre: 95 x 79 cm. / 37 ½ x 31 in. Gilt wood, very good condition.
Origin: France.

This late 19th century Russian school oil on cardboard painting showcases a bearded man, capturing his psychology in a stunning and expressive portrait. Despite some older restorations, the unsigned painting remains in excellent condition, with a repainted and intricately designed gilded frame in very good condition as well.

Artist: Unknown.
Unsigned.
Medium: Oil on cardboard.
Condition: Very good condition.
Dimensions : 47 x 39 cm. / 18 1/2 x 15 1/2 in.
Frame: 59 x 51 cm. / 23 1/4 x 20 in. Very good condition.
Provenance: Germany.

Antonín (Anton) Bayer was born in 1768 in Svatá Anna (Czech Republic) and died in 1833 in Prague. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, where he lived most of his life, except a short stay in Budapest between 1821 and 1823, and another in Vienna around 1825. His work consists mainly of landscapes, portraits, miniatures and genre scenes. The church of St. Gall in Radaun possesses an altar painting by Bayer representing a Bishop Healing a Woman. Most of his clients belonged to the aristocracy, especially the Thun and Nostiz families.

The woman depicted is not precisely identified, but the portrait was once part of a pair entitled "Herr und Dame". The two portraits were sold separately at an auction in Munich in 2004. The man in the other portrait represented either a rich landowner of the city of Lemberg (now Lviv, Ukraine) or an administrative charge of the imperial family of Austria, according to the auction catalogue. The woman in this portrait would have been his wife. She sits resting her right arm on an Empire style table, with a Doric column and draped green silk curtain in the backdrop. She wears a greyish-blue satin décolleté dress with puff shoulders, a transparent lace bonnet with an extremely delicate floral motif, and a pink mousseline shawl wrapped around her back and left arm. Her black hair is coiffed in the corkscrew style popular at the time. Oil on canvas, probably relined, and recently cleaned. Original frame in carved and gilded wood.

Artist: Anton Bayer (1768-1833)
Signed and dated in the lower right corner "A. Bayer, 1822".
Medium: Oil on canvas.
Condition: Very good condition.
Dimensions: 96 x 74 cm. / 37 3/4 x 29 in.
Frame: 116 x 93 cm. / 45 1/2 x 36 1/2 in. Very good condition.
Origin: Germany.

This vintage scene painting, painted in 1943, depicts a woman gracefully pouring a cup of tea. Accredited to Mrs. Lagergren, as indicated by a label on the back of the Värmland Museum where it was exhibited, this piece is oil on hardboard and comes with a gilded frame in very good condition.

Arne Erik Kilsby, born September 24, 1895 in Visnum, Värmland, Sweden, died in 1989, was a Swedish painter.

Kilsby studied art at the Althin School of Painting in 1919 and at the Royal Institute of Art in 1920-1922. He then continued his studies with Othon Friesz in Paris.

Kilsby made his debut in the exhibition of the Värmland Art Association in Karlstad in 1927. The following year he participated with 25 works in the artist group De 13 in an exhibition at Liljevalchs konsthall. He exhibited separately at Modern Art in a Home Environment in Stockholm in 1945 and at Värmlands Museum in 1931 and 1951.

His art consists of still lifes, portraits and intimate landscape depictions. Kilsby is represented at Värmlands museum, the Swedish Arts Council, Södersjukhuset, St. Erik's and St. Görans hospital in Stockholm.

Source: Wikipedia.

Artist: Arne Kilsby (1895-1989).
Signed and dated in the lower right.
Medium: Oil on hardboard.
Condition: Very good condition.
Dimensions: 55 x 46 cm. / 21 1/2 x 18 in.
Frame: 73 x 62 cm. / 28 3/4 x 24 1/2 in. Very good condition.
Origin: Sweden.

Arthur Miles was a British Victorian era portrait and genre painter born in Lambeth (South London) 10 January 1827 and died in Stroud Green (North London) 22 June 1904. He was the son of Thomas Miles, a composer and music teacher, and brother of Leonidas Clint Miles (1839-1898), a landscape painter. He exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy between 1851-1872, at The British Institution between 1862-1867 and at the Royal Society of British Artists between 1859 and 1880. One of his works is in the National Gallery, London.

Charlotte Augusta Southwick, daughter of Jonathan and Lucretia Southwick, was born in New York City in 1813. Jonathan Southwick was a successful New York merchant who had accumulated a large fortune in business. Charlotte’s lineage can be traced back to some of the most distinguished U.S. Colonial families, the Washingtons and the Elys.

Charlotte was twice married. Her first husband was Mr. William McMurray who died but a few months after their marriage, leaving her a widow at the age of eighteen. She remarried soon after in 1842 to William Coventry Waddell (1802-1884), a wealthy lawyer and financier who held various political positions in the State Department during the administration of President Andrew Jackson, and in 1832 was appointed U.S. marshal in New York. Widower of Julia Ann Cobb, Mr. Waddell had ties to some of England’s noble families, being directly descended from Lord Daubeney, of the time of Henry VII and the earls of Coventry. A few years following his marriage to Charlotte, he built a new residence on Murray Hill, a Gothic Revival mansion occupying an entire block at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Forty-seventh Street. Mr. and Mrs. Waddell entertained the country’s celebrities, and the most distinguished visitors from foreign lands. They also spent summers at Saratoga Springs, the fashionable resort of the times.

A social leader in the broadest sense in the early 1850s, Mrs. Waddell was the first American woman to establish a New York Salon. Before the era of Caroline Schermerhorn Astor and Mamie Fish, Charlotte Waddell dominated as the queen of Manhattan society. John W. Jordan wrote in 1911: "No record is to be found which deals with the social history of New York City in the nineteenth century as a whole, and which does not pay homage to this Salon and its hostess". To the drawing-room of this most charming and magnetic of women came Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, Washington Irving, Thackeray, and many others who in their literary, artistic or diplomatic careers had become famous. In the panic of the monetary crisis of 1857 Mr. Waddell lost his fortune and he was compelled to sacrifice his beautiful home on Murray Hill, moving to a residence two miles north of Newburgh on the Hudson. A few years later, they eventually retrieved a portion of their fortune. retaining her social prestige, Mrs. Waddell continued to make her hospitable home a recognized intellectual center. After a prolonged and brave battle against an ovarian tumor, she died in 1891 at her home at 340 W. 43rd Street, New York City. She is buried in the family vault in downtown Manhattan’s Trinity Churchyard.

Sources: Benezit, Dictionary of Artists; The Dictionary of British Artists 1880-1940; The Dictionary of Victorian Painters; British and Irish Paintings in Public Collections; Kurt of Gerolstein: Arthur Miles, Victorian Artist (2021). Emma Willard and her pupils, Fifty years of Troy female seminary, 1822-1872 (1898); The Queens of American Society (1873); John W. Jordan, Colonial and Revolutionary Families of Pennsylvania (1911); The Old Merchants of New York City, Vol. 4, Walter Barrett, 1863; S. Waddell-Smith.

Artist: Arthur Miles (1827-1904).
Signed and dated in the lower right corner.
Medium: Oil on canvas.
Condition: Very good condition. Relined and restored professionally in the early 1980s.
Dimensions: 76 x 64 cm. / 30 x 25 ¼ in.
Frame: 95 x 83 cm. / 37 ½ x 32 ¾ in. Gilt wood, oval aperture, very good condition.
Provenance: Private Collection, Ottawa.

This portrait depicts an unidentified magistrate and adviser to the Parliament of Brittany. Dressed in traditional attire, the figure exudes authority and importance. The white-gloved hand holding a black hat further emphasizes their high status. A must-have for history and art enthusiasts.

Under the Kingdom of France’s Old Regime, parliaments dealt with matters relating to public order, royal legislation, finances, assistance to the population and public education. They also served as presidial courts of appeal and tried serious criminals. The nobles come under the jurisdiction of parliament.

This oil on canvas painting has undergone professional restoration. During the cleaning process, the artist’s signature and date were discovered on the reverse: "Baziray pinxit 1747". Its magnificent gilded wood and plaster frame (French Regency-Louis XV period) has also been restored.

Charles Baziray was a French portrait painter, student or follower of Nicolas de Largillière. Born in Paris around 1690, he worked as a painter from 1707 to 1713 at the Manufacture Royale des Gobelins in Paris, under the direction of Pierre Mathieu, the King’s painter. From 1718, Baziray moved to Brittany, notably to Nantes, Rennes and Saint-Malo, where he enjoyed a certain degree of notoriety among the high society of the region and was commissioned numerous portraits. Married in 1726 to Anne Penet, daughter of the Lord of La Pallière, Baziray died on January 29, 1757 at the Château de Rosanbo, property of the wealthy and influential Le Peletier family. He is buried in the Lanvellec parish church, near the castle.

Sources: Benezit, Dictionary of Artists; Archives de France. 

Artist: Charles Baziray (h.1690-1757).
Signed and dated on back “Baziray Pinxit 1747”.
Medium: Oil on canvas.
Condition: Very good condition.
Dimensions: 82,5 x 65 cm. / 32 ½ x 25 ½ in.
Frame: 102 x 86 cm. / 40 x 34 in. Ornate gilded wood and plaster frame, in excellent condition.
Origin: France.

Portrait of Antoinette-Jordaine de Pellevé de Flers (1699-1738), Countess of Flers, Baroness of Larchant, Chatelaine of Lande-Patri, Dame of Frenaye, Chanu, Belle-Fontaine, Hemérez, Riou, etc. Hailing from one of the original noble families of Calvados (Normandy), last of the Pellevé family line and heiress of the county of Flers. She married Philippe-René Ango de La Motte-Ango on June 11, 1717, Lord of La Motte and Villebadin, Baron of Ecouché and adviser to the Norman Parliament. They had three children. She inherited the county of Flers from the last male descendant of the Pellevé family, Count Hyancinthe-Louis de Pellevé de Flers, Baron of Larchant and governor of Meudon, who died without male heirs in April 1736. Antoinette de Flers died in Paris a few years later, on February 6, 1738, at the age of 39. In accordance with her wishes, her heart was buried in the Saint-Sulpice church in Paris and her body next to that of her husband, who had died a year earlier, at the castle of Flers (Normandy). This property belonged to the counts of Flers until the French Revolution. After having gone through several fires and having various owners, it is currently a museum and seat of the Town Hall of Flers.

This formal portrait remained until the beginning of the 20th century at the Château de Villebadin (belonging to the Marquis de Flers, one of her children) along with the portrait of her mother, Madeleine Françoise Angélique de Gauréault du Mont (1677-1734), also painted by Baziray and currently at the Baron Gérard Museum of Art and History, in Bayeaux. Anecdotally, this painting was acquired as an anonymous 18th century French School painting. Having probably been relined in the 19th century, this old relining was recently removed while being professionally restored and the artist’s signature and date were discovered on the back. Exceptional quality work with a magnificent wooden and stucco frame (19th century), also restored.

Charles Baziray was a French portrait painter, student or follower of Nicolas de Largillière. Born in Paris around 1690, he worked as a painter from 1707 to 1713 at the Manufacture Royale des Gobelins in Paris, under the direction of Pierre Mathieu, the King’s painter. From 1718, Baziray moved to Brittany, notably to Nantes, Rennes and Saint-Malo, where he enjoyed a certain degree of notoriety among the high society of the region and was commissioned numerous portraits. Married in 1726 to Anne Penet, daughter of the Lord of La Plallière, Baziray died on January 29, 1757 at the Château de Rosanbo, property of the wealthy and influential Le Peletier family. He is buried in the Lanvellec parish church, near the castle.

Sources: Benezit; Archives de France; Histoire de Flers, ses Seigneurs, son industrie – Paris 1855;  Bulletin de la Société historique et archéologique de l'Orne, 1905.

Artist: Charles Baziray (h.1690-1757)
Signed and dated on back “Baziray Pinxit 1734”.
Medium: Oil on canvas.
Condition: Very good condition. Recently professionally restored.
Dimensions: 81 x 65 cm. / 32 x 25 ½ in.
Frame: 100 x 84 cm. / 39 ¼ x 33 in. Gilt wood and stucco, very good condition.
Origin: France.

This painting, created by Edmond Dutry around 1935, depicts a handsome man with blue eyes. The piece is rendered in oil on canvas, and while it is not signed or framed, it remains in very good condition.

Edmond Marie Marie Maurice Dutry was a Belgian painter and draughtsman born on 30 August 1897 in Kalken (East Flanders). He was the son of Albert Dutry, a prestigious lawyer, justice of the peace, painter and art critic, and Marie Odile Dutry-Tibbaut, a watercolour painter and pastelist. 

After the First World War, he became a painter and had a studio on the Recolettenlei. He exhibits regularly at the Ghent Salon, painting mainly portraits, figures, still lifes and many Ghent cityscapes.

Using a very personal technique, her work, especially her portraits, is very expressive and rigorously executed, where the search for character is taken to the extreme.

Edmond Dutry died in Ghent on 8 February 1959 at the age of 61. 

Sources: Benezit, Belgian Archives.

Artist: Edmond Dutry (1897-1959).
Unsigned.
Medium: Oil on canvas.
Condition: Very good condition.
Dimensions: 60,5 x 51 cm. / 23 3/4 x 20 in.
Frame: Unframed
Provenance: Germany.

Portrait of a man in a dark suit and red tie. Two elements of this painting could facilitate the identification of the sitter: the leopard skin on which he is leaning and the ring with the initial "P" on his left ring finger. Superior quality work, signed and dated 1863.

Franz Sterrer, was an Austrian painter of portraits and genre scenes. He was born in Wels (Upper Austria) on November 16, 1818. Pupil of Friedrich von Amerling, one of the most eminent 19th century portrait specialists, Franz Sterrer exhibited at the Vienna Academy of Art from 1840 to 1845. In 1848, he moved to Constantinople, where he produced several portraits commissioned by Sultan Abdülmecit I. There, he married a French woman. After completing his works for the Sultan, the couple returned to France and settled in Ecully, near Lyon, where he died on September 17, 1901.

Source: Benezit Dictionary of Artists.

Artist: Franz Sterrer (1818-1901).
Signed and dated in lower left corner.
Medium: Oil on canvas.
Condition: Very good condition.
Dimensions: 81 x 65 cm. / 32 x 25 ½ in.
Frame: 99 x 84 cm. / 39 x 33 in. Gilt wood and stucco, 19th century, good condition.
Origin: France.

Portrait of Louis-François Cochet de Corbeaumont, squire and lord of Busnes, Corbeaumont, and Fauquetin. Member of the nobility of northern France, he was born in Busnes (Pas-de-Calais) May 16, 1724. In 1750, he married Catherine-Françoise de Gomer, daughter of the Marquis de Gomer. Their son, Louis-Gabriel Cocher of Corbeaumont (1754-1835), was mayor of Busnes between 1805-1830 and author of a book on Falconry entitled “La fauconnerie ou Essais en plein vol“. This being the only French text on falconry of the time, it is a work by an aristocratic witness to one of the last full flight hunts in the old regime. The Cochet family of Corbeaumont lived in the beautiful Quesnoy castle (Busnes), unfortunately burned in 1899 due to a fire in the kitchen. Only the 18th century chapel remains, dedicated to Notre Dame de Montligeon, and recently restored by a heritage association. The Corbeaumont family has no known descendants and was buried in Busnes communal cemetery, which has now disappeared. Louis-François died on June 24, 1798 in Saint-Omer (Pas-de-Calais) at the age of 74 years.

Georges-Louis de Roose, Belgian portrait painter, was born in Kortrijk (West Flanders) on April 26, 1701 and died in Saint-Omer, September 24, 1765. According to the custom of the time, de Roose travelled quite a bit at the onset of his career. He next settled in Bruges where he made various portraits. He also painted four paintings for the Abbey of Eeckhoutte depicting scenes from the life of Saint Augustine (now lost). De Roose left Bruges where he apparently had Jan Gaeremyn as a pupil, to settle in Saint-Omer, in 1749, where he died on September 24, 1765.

De Roose painted this portrait in 1758, when the sitter, Louis-François Couchet of Corbeaumont, was 34 years old. He is wearing a hunter's outfit and bears a rifle on his shoulder.

This painting is in very good condition, recently restored and relined. It is set in a gilt wood and stucco 19th century frame. The following handwritten inscription appears on the back of the canvas (currently covered): “Louis François Cochet de Corbeaumont, 34 years old. G.L. de Roose fecit 1758" and there is a faint annotation in pencil on the back of the frame "Succession Montcalm" (Montcalm Estate).

Sources: Archives de France ; Biographie Nationale - Académie royale des sciences, des lettres et des beaux-arts de Belgique, 1910.

Artist: Georges de Roose (1701-1765).
Signed and dated on back, 1758.
Medium: Oil on canvas.
Condition: Very good condition.
Dimensions: 82 x 65 cm. / 32 ¼ x 25 ½ in.
Frame: 100 x 84 cm. / 39 ½ x 33 in. Gilt wood and stucco, 19th century. Very good condition.
Origin : France.

  

 

Original self-portrait painting by renowned post-impressionist artist Georges Pacouil, This oil on canvas is signed "Georges Pacouil 1960" in the lower left corner and comes with a carved wood frame Montparnasse style circa 1940-50.

Georges Louis Abdon Pacouil was born in Paris on March 24, 1903 and died in Neuilly-sur-Seine on March 26, 1997.  A student at the Bernard-Palissy School and above all a student of the pointillist painter Hippolyte Petitjean (1854-1929).

Neorealist and post-impressionist painter of figures, nudes, landscapes and still lifes, he is attached to the form and structure of nature. His art is similar to that of André Dunoyer de Segonzac (1884-1974) or Amédée de La Patellière (1890-1932). Theater decorator between 1920 and 1934, painter and teacher since 1934, he exhibited in many salons since 1931. He was a member of the Salon d'Automne since 1934, and member of the major Parisian and national Salons. Participated in major exhibitions abroad: Balkan, San Francisco, Tunisia, Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh. Also he was a former member of the Commission for the Professionalism of Artists and of the Committee of the Society of Independent Artists.

He received numerous distinctions and honours throughout his career: Bernheim Prize, Blumental Prize, First Prize in the Watercolor Competition of the city of Paris (1950), Louis Willaume Prize, Silver Medal of the French Education League (1954), Vermeil Arts-Sciences Medal -Letters (1968), Gold Medal for Youth and Sports (1969), Gold Medal from the General Council of Hauts de Seine (1984).

Some of his paintings are in the National Museum of Modern Art and Center Georges Pompidou, in Paris.

Sources: Benezit; Archives de France.

Artist: Georges Pacouil (1903-1997).
Signed and dated in the lower left.
Medium: Oil on canvas.
Condition: Very good condition.
Dimensions: 65 x 54 cm. / 25 1/2 x 21 1/4 in.
Frame: 80 x 69 cm. / 31 1/2 x 27 1/4 in. Very good condition.
Origin: France.

This original oil on canvas portrait captures a bearded man dressed in medieval clothing with impeccable detail. Signed with initials and accompanied by a biographical label, this work is one of Hyppolite Bellangé's last pieces from 1865. A must-have for any art collector or history enthusiast.

Joseph Louis Hippolyte Bellangé, French artist. Born 17 January 1800, in Paris; died 10 April 1866, in Paris. He was a painter, watercolourist, draughtsman and lithographer. He mainly painted military subjects, battles and genre scenes.

He entered Baron Antoine-Jean Gros’ workshop at a very young age and there he became friends with Nicolas Toussaint Charlet, who had recently published his first lithographs. The young Bellangé followed his colleague’s lead and started producing plates of military costumes and illustrations of Old Guard veterans in Napoleon's armies. He made his début at the Paris Salon with military scenes and his work as an illustrator quickly became well-known, although his genre painting demonstrated greater verve and vivacity. He sought help from Adrien Dauzats in the rendering of architectural features in his battle scenes. He was awarded a second place medal in 1824 and, in 1834, the cross of the Légion d'Honneur. He was one of the first to be named curator of the military museum at Versailles. In 1836, he was appointed curator of Rouen Museum; from then on, he devoted his time almost entirely to painting. His reputation grew steadily throughout his life, and his final painting, La garde meurt, was a genuine triumph. It was shown posthumously to great acclaim at the 1867 Exposition Universelle, as were his illustrations Les deux amis (Sevastopol), 1855; Épisode de la Retraite de Russie, 1863; Épisode du retour de l’île d’Elbe, 1864. He was made an officer of the Légion d'Honneur in 1861. Bellangé's body of lithographic work comprises some 500 catalogue entries compiled by Jules Adeline in 1880.

Source: Benezit Dictionary of Artists; Archives de France.
 
Artist: Hippolyte Bellangé (1800-1866).
Signed hyp. B. and label on the stretcher.
Medium: Oil on canvas.
Condition: Very good condition.
Dimensions: 56 x 46 cm. / 22 x 18 in.
Frame: 73 x 64 cm. / 28 3/4 x 25 1/4 in. Gilt wood, very good condition.
Origin: France.

 

This beautiful portrait captures the delicate and intimate essence of a woman in profile, as she sits and looks through a magazine. Her gaze appears abstracted, perhaps indicating that she is viewing through a window, where the light shines upon her face. She is wearing a violet dress with gold trimmings. A bouquet of violets in a glass vase on a table completes the scene. Painted with oil on canvas, this piece is in excellent condition with only minor craquelure on the forehead and evidence of previous restoration. The artwork is signed and dated by the artist in 1923 and is accompanied by its original frame, a stunning gilded carved wood design.

There are many epithets that fit the Finnish talented and cosmopolitan Hugo Elias Backmansson. He was an officer, a battle painter, a world traveller and a chess master. Born April 17, 1860 in Paimio (at that time Finland belonged to the Russian Empire). He studied at Turku Drawing School (1870–73). After his officer's training at Cadet School of Fredrikshamn, Backmansson got a job in the Izmailovsky regiment in St. Petersburg and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in this city (1894–99), there he also studied battle painting with excellent ingenuity. In 1905 he took part in the Russo-Japanese War as a war reporter and battle painter. Backmansson made his first trip to North Africa in 1898, when he fell in love with the light and colours and returned many times. He became known for his numerous depictions of military life and North Africa in watercolour and oil, but he was also a tireless portraitist and landscape painter for seven decades.

Backmansson is represented, among others, in Åbo Akademi, the Amos Anderson Art Museum, the Athenaeum Art Museum, Lahden Museum, Gösta Serlachius Museum, Turku Art Museum, Ett hem Museum and the Hermitage in St Petersburg.

The artist died November 19, 1953 in Helsinki, at the ninety-three, succumbing to a fall from a tramway.

Sources: Wikipedia; Hugo Backmansson - Artist, officer and adventurer, Swedish Literature Society in Finland, 2010.

Artist: Hugo Backmansson (1860-1953).
Signed and dated in the upper right-hand corner.
Medium: Oil on canvas.
Condition: Very good condition.
Dimensions : 52 x 63 cm. / 20 1/2 x 24 3/4 in.
Frame: 62 x 73 cm. / 24 1/2 x 28 3/4 in. Very good condition.
Origin: Finland.