Ancient tableau animated landscape signed Henri Collinet dated 1883 Oil on canvas

  
Oil on canvas, 54.5 x 39.5 cm. Signed at the bottom right: H. Below the signature is a mention and a date: Dives, 83 (for 1883). The oil is sold in its original frame: 66.5 x 51.5 cm. Its frieze has been cleaned and repainted in antique gold, and the perimeter has been repainted in a satin amber honey color.

The oil shows some signs of use (see photos 1, 5, 7) but I guarantee that it is well-preserved considering its nearly 150 years! It has been cleaned and lightly varnished for sale.

It comes from the private collection of an art lover who appreciated landscape painting from the second half of the 19th century, during the time of Maupassant! My remarks on this work. The stages of peasant life have always been for Henri Collinet the subject matter of paintings that never betray their meaning, without falling into anecdote. One will also notice the skillful framing that highlights the fragility of the old woman bent over, merging with the tray of her antique wheelbarrow.

The human figure in its laborious daily life, in a setting where everything speaks of the passage of seasons and this suspended time in a sort of silent communion with its environment. It exudes a palpable poetry mixed with a spiritual reflection on the place of man in nature (one cannot help but think of Millet). Certainly painted on site around the marshes of the Dives (Collinet often walked in this region of Calvados, like the painters Auguste Allongé and Léon Duval-Gozlan), the work retains its impactful force and initial emotion, radiating what is called "a full atmosphere" or "a soul.

Henri-Alexandre Collinet, watercolorist and French painter, was born in 1860 and died in 1905. He lived at 18 Rue Meslay and 5 Boulevard Saint-Martin in Paris (3rd arrondissement). He primarily painted landscapes of Normandy (Dives-sur-mer and its region inspired him greatly), banks of the Seine, the Yonne (he particularly cherished the small village of Malay and its region: the municipalities of Malay-le-Grand and Maillot have even honored him by naming one of their main streets after him), and the Alpes-Maritimes. He also traveled to Holland (Scheveningen, Dordrecht). The theme of water is often present in his works.

Henri Collinet was a painter for whom currents in painting did not exist but who constantly refined a soft and light technique that served nature while allowing it to express itself. He exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français (Paris) in 1882, 1883, 1884, 1888, 1894, 1895, 1897, 1900, 1901 with canvases and watercolors. He also exhibited at the Salon du Blanc et Noir (Paris) in 1885. In the year of his death, his studio collection (which consisted of 71 paintings) was sold on June 14 and 15, 1905, at the Hôtel Drouot under the hammer of Master Emile Boudin, auctioneer in Paris. Some of his works can be found at the Municipal Museum of Sens "Moulin de Malay-le-Grand" (oil on canvas).

Museum of Civilizations of Europe and the Mediterranean (Mucem) in Marseille "The Blacksmith's Workshop", oil on canvas. Archives of Master Blache, auctioneer in Versailles, "Street", oil on canvas. Main sources: Benezit; Dictionary of French Landscape Painters of the 19th Century by Lydia Harambourg, 1985 Editions Ides & Calendes, Neuchâtel (Switzerland); Catalogs of the Salons of French Artists and of the Blanc et Noir; catalog of the Studio of the late Henri Collinet Painter, Chamber of Auctioneers Paris, registration no. 153 dated June 14, 1905. Possibility of hand delivery in Arras.

I am at your disposal for further information.