Albert Andre

( 1869 - 1954 )

Le Dessert

Albert Andre

( 1869 - 1954 )

Le Dessert

  • Medium: Oil on canvas

  • Signed: Signed lower right & titled on original label verso

  • Size: 14.00" x 18.00" (35.6cm x 45.7cm)

  • Framed Size: 21.50" x 25.50" (54.6cm x 64.8cm)

  • Dated: c. 1898

£11,950.00
GBP

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Additional information

  • Condition: Very good original condition

  • Provenance: Galerie Durand-Ruel - Paris - stock no. DR 10284

About this painting

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.

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    Albert Andre Biography

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    Albert Andre Paintings for Sale

    Albert Andre came to Paris in 1889 as an industrial designer. At the age of 23 he enrolled at the studio of William Bouguereau at the Académie Julian, where he met Ranson, Louis Valtat and the young poet and dramatist Henry Bataille, who at the time was training as a painter. He illustrated L'étang de Berre by Charles Maurras and Les Petites Alliées by Claude Farrère. He produced cartoons for tapestries for the Beauvais factory. In his youth he worked in Paris and Loudun, but later settled in the Midi, where he became curator of the museum in Bagnols-sur-Cèze, building up a major collection of contemporary art, including works by Monet, Renoir, Bonnard, Vuillard, Matisse and Despiau. In 1923, as a friend of Renoir, he compiled his recollections of the painter in a preface to an album of collotypes of his works.

    Albert Andre was initially influenced in his painting by Delacroix, and it was Cézanne's paintings that helped him discover how to give the impression of volume using colour: warm tones for illuminated surfaces and cool colours for shadow. But it was undoubtedly Renoir who had the most profound influence on him, especially as it was Renoir who noticed his paintings in 1894 and introduced him to Paul Durand-Ruel, who became his dealer. He painted a wide range of subjects, from particularly accomplished compositions involving figures in urban landscapes, to indoor scenes in which he toned down his colour palette. He painted scenes from Paris, Lyons, Marseilles and Laudun, numerous pictures of Bagnols-sur-Cèze, portraits of women, including Young Girl in Blue; Young Girl Pulling up her Stocking, and precious records of his contemporaries: Portrait of Renoir; Claude Monet in his Garden.

    He began exhibiting at the Salon des Indépendants in 1894. Between 1904 and 1944 he exhibited at the Salon d'Automne, becoming a Salon member, and in 1927 he designed the poster for that year's exhibition. From 1923 onwards his work sometimes appeared at the Salon des Tuileries. In 1924 he exhibited in New York and Buenos Aires.

    Group Exhibitions

    2001, Women in Provence and the Mediterranean (Le Femme en Provence et en Méditerranée), Fondation Regards de Provence, Château de Borély, Marseilles

    Solo Exhibitions

    1964, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Besançon

    1965, Arthur Tooth Gallery, London

    2004, Musée Louis Voulland, Avignon

    Museum and Gallery Holdings

    Épinal (Mus. départemental d'Art ancien et contemporain): Lunch at the Seaside (1918)

    Lyons (MBA): In Provence

    Narbonne (MAH): La Toilette (1952)

    New York (MoMA)

    Paris (MNAM-CCI): Lunch at the Seaside; Bather; Afternoon in Batignolles Square, or The Park (1923); Banks of the Seine (1930)

    Paris (Mus. d'Orsay): Ball Game; Woman with Canary; Maleck Painting in his Studio; Music

    Washington DC (NGA)

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