“Le Dessert”

Medium	Oil on canvas
Signed	Signed lower right & titled on original label verso
Size	14.00" × 18.00" (35.6cm × 45.7cm)
Framed Size	21.50" × 25.50" (54.6cm × 64.8cm)
Dated	c. 1898
Condition	Very good original condition
Provenance	Galerie Durand-Ruel - Paris - stock no. DR 10284

Summary

A fruit dish on a white cloth — the most classical of still life subjects, and one that has occupied the greatest painters from Chardin to Cézanne. Albert André (1869–1954) brings to it the full inheritance of that tradition and the particular warmth of a painter whose eye was shaped by decades of friendship with Renoir. The composition is precise and unhurried. The white compotier at the centre, its pedestal casting a soft shadow across the cloth below. Green grapes in two clusters — one full and dense, one looser — with a yellow pear rising behind them and peaches or nectarines filling the bowl with their warm reds and oranges. To the left, a blue-rimmed dish with a halved nectarine, its flesh catching the light. A knife on the tablecloth in the foreground, the ivory handle set against the white of the linen. The dark neutral of the background, against which every colour reads with complete clarity. What André does with this arrangement is not flashy but it is absolutely accomplished. Each fruit is painted with the specific attention it deserves — the bloom on the grapes rendered in short, soft strokes, the skin of the peaches built in warm impasto that suggests their weight and texture, the pear handled more simply, its smooth yellow skin requiring a different, more deliberate touch. The white cloth — the structural foundation of the whole composition — is painted in the Impressionist manner, its folds and shadows built from broken strokes of pale blue, lavender and cream that give it air and light without losing its solidity. Painted around 1898 — the year André first encountered Renoir, which would become the defining relationship of his career — this is early André at his most confident. The Durand-Ruel stock number DR 10284 confirms that it passed through the most celebrated gallery in the history of French Impressionism, the house that represented Monet, Renoir, Pissarro and Sisley and that brought Impressionism to the world. A work with this provenance and this quality represents an exceptional opportunity.

£11,950.00

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