118. Still Life with Autumn Fruits [1872]

In the exhibition including "no less than 144 works", opened in Bucharest in 1873 (a personal one, within the great exhibition by Societatea Amicilor Bellelor Arte), Grigorescu presented paintings he had completed in France, from where he had returned in 1869, but also paintings completed in Romania. These paintings included still life with hunting trophies, with flowers, with fruits, certainly lower in number than the landscapes. In the year marking the current work (1872), Grigorescu was in Romania, working in the spirit of the French realistic painting, an ambiance he had recently separated from. He was surely preparing his participation in the aforementioned artistic event, which was due to take place in one year. The analysed work bears the same hallmark as the elaborations of the same theme and in the same pictorial manners as those of the Paris and Barbizon study years. That is why we do not exclude the hypothesis that this painting belongs to the category exhibited in 1873 (or at least that it is related to the exhibition's preparation period). Actually, in the catalogue of the aforementioned exhibition (2nd edition), we find a work by the title Struguri (Grapes) (p.8, cat. 187), or another one, Struguri și alte fructe (Grapes and Other Fruit) (p.9, cat. 211). Assembled using various fruits, placed in a large piece of vessel, a bassine (presumably French, as it appears in related paintings), the composition stands out as a variation on the same theme as the work Pot aux fleurs (1864), painted in Barbizon and still present on the premises, as property of the Ganne Museum, from the famous town that was so highly appreciated by 19th Century painters. Worthy of comparison, the two still life paintings are both executed inside, artificially lit for evening conditions, the pictorial effect being created through the dramatic contrast between the dark ambiance - obscurity, and the strongly lit central area - the fruit basket (respectively the flowers). Simpler from the compositional point of view and lacking the executional magnificence of the painting from the Ganne Museum - this one being specifically aimed for the Ganne Inn collection - the current painting is rather a pictorial exercise which, through tone harmonisation and the quality of spreading the pictorial matter, is getting closer to Natură moartă cu struguri (Still Life With Grapes), present in the MNAR heritage, inv. 109.560/11.230. In relation to the latter, the differences originate mainly from the different format of the supporting canvas, which is vertical for our painting, and horizontal for the one in the Museum. The page layout and the plastic language of the currently examined work (just like for other works by the Romanian artist) are surely owed to other painters from Grigorescu's generation, who specialised in still life as a genre, such as François Bonvin (1817-1887), whom Grigorescu had the chance to meet in person, on the occasion of the visits made towards 1864 and 1865, in the collection of Dr. Louis La Caze. Placed in a French frame, specific for the era of Napoleon III, the canvas displays, on its retro side, the oval label F.FERDINANDY/Doreur/Stavropolis No. 7, which could eventually indicate the painting's itinerary through the 1880s exhibitions opened in Bucharest, in the Strada Stavropoleos hall (see Petre Oprea, "Stavropoleos, prima sală permanentă de expoziții din România" / "Stavropoleos, the First Permanent Exhibition Hall in Romania", in Prospectări în arta românească / Explorations in Romanian Art, Litera, Bucharest, 1973, p.56-63). (I.B.)

References

A l’apogée de l’Impressionnisme. La collection Georges de Bellio, Musée Marmottan Monet. Académie des Beaux Arts. Institut de France, La Bibliothèque des Arts Publishing House, Lausanne et Musée Martmottan Monet, Paris, 2007 (studies by: Marianne Delafond, Remus Niculescu). Costina Anghel, Mariana Vida, Repertory of Modern Romanian Painting, vol.II, letters F-H, National Museum of Art of Romania, Bucharest, 2016. Nicolae Grigorescu (1838-1907). Itinéraire d’un peintre roumain de l’Ecole de Barbizon à l’impressionnisme, Somogy Editions d’Art, Paris/Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Agen, Agen, 2006. Remus Niculescu, Nicolae Grigorescu Exhibition, catalogue, The R.P.R. Museum of Art, Bucharest, 1957. G. Oprescu [-R.Niculescu], N.Grigorescu, vol.I, Meridiane Publishing House, Bucharest, 1961. O.A. Vlahuță, The Painter N.I.Grigorescu. His life and work, Casa Școalelor edition, Socec, Bucharest, 1910.

Dimensions

width 34.5 cm, height 40.5 cm, custom 40,5 × 34,5 cm

Description

oil on canvas, signed and dated bottom left, with black, "Grigorescu, (1)872"

Dating

1872

PROVENANCE

collection of the graphic artist Henri Daniel; from 1940 in the collection of Dr. Sotir Ciorapciu

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