Henri Fantin-Latour

Estimate

600,000 - 800,000 USD

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Description

Henri Fantin-Latour
Roses
Signed and dated Fantin 88 (upper right)
Oil on canvas
15 3/4 by 13 3/4 in.
40 by 34.9 cm

Provenance

Mrs. Edwin Edward, London
F. & J. Tempelaere, Paris
J. Russell Buckler (and sold: Christie's, London, March 10, 1906, lot 57)
Bonjean (acquired at the above sale)
Félix Gérard
A. Caressa, Paris
Emile Laffon, Paris
Wildenstein
Mr. and Mrs. Dunbar Bostwick

Exhibited

Paris, Palais de L'Ecole de Beaux-Arts, Exposition de L'Ouevre de Fantin-Latour, no. 78
Birmingham Museum of Art, 1989

Literature

Victoria Fantin-Latour, Catalogue de L'Oeuvre Complet de Fantin-Latour, Paris, 1911, titled Roses blanches dans un verre vert à panse, no. 1344, p. 141

Catalogue Note

This picture, with its crispness and startling realism, demonstrates the best of Fantin's expertise in capturing the tactile surfaces of flower petals, stems and leaves. Fantin continued to paint dozens of compositions of bud vases and elaborate bouquets, all which have come to define his career as an artist.

Because of his extraordinary eye for detail, Fantin was capable of seeing each flower with remarkable specificity. According to Edward Lucie-Smith, "His belief, academic in origin, that techinique in painting was separable from the subject to which the artist applied it, enabled him to see the blooms he painted not as botanical specimens, but as things which, though not necessarily significant in themselves, would generate significant art upon the canvas. At the same time, the naturalist bias of the milieu in which he had been brought up encouraged him to try and give a completely objective description of all the nuances of colour and form which he saw in the bouquet he had arranged” (Edward Lucie-Smith, Henri Fantin-Latour, New York, 1977, pp. 22-23).