Fernand Toussaint

Femme arrangeant un bouquet de fleurs

Lot Closed

January 30, 05:44 PM GMT

Estimate

25,000 - 35,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Fernand Toussaint

French

1873 - 1963

Femme arrangeant un bouquet de fleurs

signed FToussaint (lower right)

oil on canvas

canvas: 51 3/8 by 39 1/8 in.; 131 by 99 cm

framed: 59 by 47 1/2 in.; 149.6 by 120.5 cm

with Whitford and Hughes, London

Private collection, United States (acquired from the above)

Sale: Sotheby's, New York, 3 May 2000, lot 281

Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

Patrick and Viviane Berko and Stéphane Rey, Fernand Toussaint: 1873-1956, Brussels 1986, pp. 82, illustrated, 83, also illustrated on the cover

A brilliant draughtsman and colorist, Fernand Toussaint was a precocious student at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels, where he was accepted at the age of fifteen. Three years later, he moved to Paris where he continued his studies under the tutelage of Alfred Stevens. While excelling at a variety of subjects, Toussaint became known as an exceptional painter of women.

In Arranging the Bouquet, the artist fused the crosscurrents of French Modernism and Post Impressionism with the Academic portraiture of Gainsborough and Reynolds, which influenced him profoundly during his long stays in London. His serene interiors exuding elegance and sensitivity were very popular with critics and collectors throughout Europe and the United States.