Félicie Julie Engrand, known as Fely, was a French painter, born in Marseille on August 25, 1889 and died in the same city some time after 1983. Daughter of a modest worker, she was born at 89, boulevard Chave. A pupil of the Marseille artist Marius Barret, between 1911 and 1932 she exhibited still lifes, mainly flowers, at the Salon des Artistes Français, of which she became a member in 1928. In addition, she was appointed professor at the École des Beaux-Arts in Marseille during the interwar period. In 1938, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Marseille acquired its Cassis landscape in stormy weather. She still worked very actively in her studio at 12, quai d'Estienne-d'Orves until the 1960s and 1970s. She then retired to rue Marcel-Sembrat, near the Place des Marseillaises, where she died in her nineties.

Sources: Marseillaises, Vingt-six siècles d’histoire, Publ. Édisud., 1999, p. 101; André Alauzen, Dictionnaire des peintres et sculpteurs de Provence – Alpes – Côte d’Azur, éd. Jeanne Laffitte, Marseille, 2006, p.178.

This scene represents three ragpickers’ children sorting through their findings.  

Artist: Félicie Engrand (1889-c.1983).

Signed in lower right corner.

Medium: Watercolour and Indian ink.

Condition: Very good condition.

Dimensions: 50 x 65 cm. / 19 ¾ x 25 ½ in.

Frame: Unframed.

Origin: France.