Henri Lebasque

In the present work, Lebasque has eloquently captured a tranquil afternoon in the south of France, enjoyed most likely by his wife and daughters. The palette and subject are quintessentially Lebasque; the soft colours, female subjects in the outdoors, and the glory of nature are captured for the viewer.

According to Lisa Banner, ' He was hailed as the painter of "Joy and Light" by art critics and curators of the Louvre in his later life. But Lebasque's primary concerns were with simple expression of sensuous surface... He achieved an intimate manner of painting those scenes and people most dear to him, which was replete with his personal delight in form and colour, heightened by his contact with fellow painters Matisse and Bonnard, but characteristically his own' (L. Banner, Lebasque, 1865-1937, San Francisco, 1985, p. 20).