Object Description
This is a magnificent antique oil on canvas still life painting with a stunning gilt and gesso frame, late 19th century in date by the French painter Jules EdouartdDiart, 1840 – 1890
This splendid painting features roses, grapes, peaches and an orange with a blue-and-white pot on a stone ledge signed lower right ‘Diart 1886’
Provenance:
Cooling Galleries, 38 Albemarle Street, London, where acquired by the late husband of the last owner
Great attention has been paid to individual elements in the painting. Indeed each rose petal has been painted with diligent conscientious precision.
The artist has captured the beauty of the arrangement perfectly well, giving the whole composition significant depth. Indeed this still life is characterised by its exceptional pastel hues and by a remarkable concentration on light and shadow on fruit, lowers and foliage.
It is housed in its magnificent gilt gesso frame which is decorated with superb foliate decoration.
Add this splendid antique painting to a very special wall in your home.
Condition:
In excellent condition the painting and frame having been beautifully cleaned in our workshops, please see photos for confirmation.
Dimensions in cm:
Height 53 x Width 45 – Canvas
Height 67 x Width 59 x Depth 7 – Frame
Dimensions in inches:
Height 20.9 x Width 17.7 – Canvas
Height 26.4 x Width 23.2 x Depth 2.8 – Frame
A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural food, flowers, dead animals, plants, or man-made drinking glasses, books, vases, jewelry.
With origins in the Middle Ages and Ancient Graeco-Roman art, still-life painting emerged as a distinct genre and professional specialisation in Western painting by the late 16th century, and has remained significant since then. A still life form gives the artist more freedom in the arrangement of elements within a composition than do paintings of other types of subjects such as landscape or portraiture.
Still life, as a particular genre, began with Netherlandish painting of the 16th and 17th centuries. Early still-life paintings, particularly before 1700, often contained religious and allegorical symbolism relating to the objects depicted. Some modern still life work breaks the two dimensional barrier and employs three dimensional mixed media, and uses found objects, photography, computer graphics, as well as video and sound.
The term includes the painting of dead animals, especially game. Live ones are considered animal art, although in practice they were often painted from dead models. The still life category also shares commonalities with zoological and especially botanical illustration, where there has been considerable overlap among artists.
Generally a still life includes a fully depicted background, and puts aesthetic rather than illustrative concerns as primary.
Our reference: A1610