Lot n° 428
Estimation :
30000 - 40000
EUR
Georges MICHEL (1763-1843) - Lot 428
Georges MICHEL (1763-1843)
The Big Oak or Oaks by the Road;
Oil on canvas
65 x 82 cm.
Bibliography:
- Galerie Durand-Ruel. Recueil d'estampes gravées à l'eau-forte. Paris,
London, Brussels, Maison Durand-Ruel, 1873, plate no. 188,
- Alfred Sensier, Étude sur Georges Michel, Paris, Lemerre, 1873, no. 54, "Un gros arbre à trois cépées, Près d'un chemin sablonneux, dans l'ombre, à droite chaumières, fonds en vigueur. Stormy sky, bright rain, fierce execution. À. M. Durand-Ruel, engraved by the
Rat.",
- Archives photographiques Durand-Ruel, Paris, under no. 4462.
Provenance:
Presumably acquired at the sale of the artist's studio, 1842, by M. de Villars, Paris,
Acquired from the latter by Paul Durand-Ruel (1931-1922), Paris, May 18, 1872,
Acquired from the latter by Nissim, comte de Camondo (1830- 1889), Paris, October 7, 1873,
Acquired from the latter by Paul Durand-Ruel, Paris, September 18, 1877,
Sale "The Durand-Ruel Collection of French Paintings", Moore's Art
Galleries, New York, May 5-6, 1887, lot 82 "An oak", sold for $550 to an anonymous collector,
Anonymous private collection, USA,
Acquired by Helen Kendall Ladd Corbett (1859-1936), Portland (Oregon), in 1912,
Donated by Mrs. Corbett's heirs to the Portland Museum of Art (Oregon), 1936,
Portland Museum of Art collection, inv. 36.94
Included by the Portland Museum of Art in its Deaccession List, in 2021
Bonham's Los Angeles sale, "Home & Interiors", February 1, 2023, as "Attributed to Michel George-Michel (1886-1985), a
Landscape"
Private collection, France
In addition to its remarkable provenance, our "Gros chêne" (Big Oak), with its stormy atmosphere and its treatment featuring beautiful, nervous impastos, is a superb example of the raw, minimal style of
Georges Michel, which so appealed to Vincent Van Gogh.
Fascinated by the atmospheric effects and changing light of the Île de France, Michel professed that "he who cannot paint all his life in four leagues of space is but a clumsy man who seeks mandrake and will never find anything but emptiness".
Van Gogh, who nicknamed him "Maître Michel", owned a copy of Sensier's 1873 catalog, as well as prints from the Galerie Durand-Ruel stock catalog.
Durand-Ruel.
It is interesting to note that when Paul Durand-Ruel organized the sale of part of his collection in 1887, in order to introduce certain Impressionists to the American public, the "Gros Chêne" garnered more bids than works by Sisley, Degas,
Boudin, Renoir
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