Item Details:

ALONG THE SEINE

EMMANUEL VICTOR AUGUSTE MARIE DE LA VILLEON

IMPRESSIONISM

Oil on Canvas, Last quarter of the 19^th century

Size: 21.0 x 18.0 in; 53.34 x 45.72 cm

Signed: Recto, lower left

The artist, with full title Victor Emmanuel Marie Auguste Comte de la Villéon, was one of the last great French Impressionists. He is described in his artistic character as the painter of harmony, balance, quiet joy and serenity. De La Villéon came from an old Breton noble family. In 1880 he started at the Academie Julian in Paris, where he initially paid homage to the style of painting, École de Barbizon. But soon he tended to Impressionism in the manner of Van Gogh and Seurat and debuted at the Salon des Independants in 1888 with great success. His works have been shown in the following Salon Nationale des Beaux-Arts and the Salon d’Automne in 1903. Today, his birthplace Fougeres and the local museum Emmanuel de la Villéon is an international cultural tourist attraction. From 1890 on, the tempo of painting and exhibitions mounted for en La Villéon. He had paintings in group exhibitions in Angers, Rennes, Paris and Bordeaux, and there were one-man shows of his work in Paris, where he became a member of the Salon d’Automne. In 1918, nine large paintings by de La Villéon were Exhibited in America, and his work also went to the great salons and one-man exhibitions in leading galleries in Paris. Three of his paintings were purchased by the French government. When the Second World War broke out, Emmanuel de La Villéon, still painting, divided his time between Paris and Yonville, where his third daughter lived. In November 1943 he went to Paris to make final preparations for an exhibition, and, in January, contracted pneumonia. He died on January 9, 1944.