Piet Lippens

"The Church Village" Piet Lippens (Belgian, 1890-1981)

Circa 1930s

Study from Nature Made in Montfaucon 1846 (Etude d'après Nature Faite à Montfaucon, 1846) François Bonvin (French, 1817-1887) Oil on canvas, original hand carved wood frame. Signed, dated and inscribed F. Bonvin 1846 a Montfaucon (ll); inscribed indistinctly Etude... F. Bonvin...montfaucon on the stretcher 6 3/8 x 8 5/8 (9 1/2 x 11 1/2 frame) inches Provenance: Ex Collection Auguste Péquégnot Paul Prouté André Watteau Charles Sadler Galerie Berès, Paris Exhibited: Paris, Galerie Beres, Francois Bonvin, Nov. 20, 1998 - Jan. 9, 1999 Literature: International Herald Tribune, Nov. 28-29, 1998, p. 9, illus. Bonvin's work has been compared with that of the eighteenth-century artist Chardin, whom Bonvin greatly admired, and from whose work he often borrowed particular motifs. Amongst the artists he personally encouraged were Théodule Ribot and Fantin-Latour. He was one of a group of artists who challenged the idea that still-life was a mode of artistic expression inferior to the lofty genre of history and religious painting. Bonvin championed the Realist conviction that everyday subject matter was the trues form of artistic expression. Bonvin was known for keen observation skills and great restraint. In his paintings, you can almost feel the moment between breaths as the subject matter is contemplated and then committed to canvas. This a superb, very personal and very quiet study of the village of Montfaucon on what appears to be an afternoon in the Argonne region in Northeastern France known its deep valleys and dense woodlands. François is one of the most interesting painters of the 19th century. Bonvin was born in humble circumstances in Paris and had a very difficult childhood. He was the son of a police officer and a seamstress; when he was four years old his mother died of tuberculosis. Young François was left in the care of an old woman who underfed him. Soon his father married another seamstress and brought the child back into the household. Nine additional children were born (one of whom was his half-brother, the painter Leon...

“View of Villefranche-sur-Mer” Raymond Thibesart (France, 1874-1968) Oil on canvas, circa 1920s 24 x 32 1/2 (29 x 38 1/2 framed) inches Bathed in the soft and steamy light of the S...

"Fantasia of Arabian Horseman" dated 1903 André Chaumière (French, XlX-XX) Oil on canvas Handcrafted original wood frame with bronze applique 20 3/4 x 12 3/4 (28 1/2 x 20 frame) inc...

Constantine (Algeria) 1893” Claude Firmin-Goy Oil on canvas 12 1/4 x 16 1/2 (16 1/2 x 20 3/4 frame) inches This bright and luminous work by the Avignon painter Claude Firmin-Goy re...

Oil and acrylic on canvas Signed lower right Unique work 1 / Hélène DUCLOS, 2016 – Artist Statement “Questioning the human condition and the position of being alive – What is it to...

Oil paint on canvas Signed lower right

Oil and acrylic on canvas Signed lower right Unique work 1 / Hélène DUCLOS, 2016 – Artist Statement “Questioning the human condition and the position of being alive – What is it to...

Provenance: Robert Hollberton, Antigua, ca. 1841 Private Collection, New York The present painting depicts Old St. John’s Cathedral on the island of Antigua. The church was erected in the 1720s on the designs of the architect Robert Cullen. It measured 130 feet by 50 feet with north and south porches 23 x 20 ½ feet. The tower, 50 feet high with its cupola, was added in 1789. The church was elevated to the status of a cathedral, but disaster struck in the form of an earthquake that destroyed the building on 8 February 1843. A memorandum of that date relates the event: “On Wednesday, 8th February, 1843, this island was visited by a most terrific and destructive earthquake. At twenty minutes before eleven o’clock in the forenoon, while the bell was ringing for prayers, and the venerable Robert Holberton was in the vestry-room, awaiting the arrival of persons to have their marriage solemnized, before the commencement of the morning service, the whole edifice, from one end to the other, was suddenly and violently agitated. Every one within the church, after the first shock, was compelled to escape for his life. The tower was rent from the top to the bottom; the north dial of the clock precipitated to the ground with a dreadful crash; the east parapet wall of the tower thrown upon the roof of the church; almost the whole of the north-west wall by the north gallery fell out in a mass; the north-east wall was protruded beyond the perpendicular; the altar-piece, the public monument erected to the memory of lord Lavington, and the private monuments, hearing the names of Kelsick, Warner, Otley, and Atkinson, fell down piecemeal inside; a large portion of the top of the east wall fell, and the whole of the south-east wall was precipitated into the churchyard, carrying along with it two of the cast-iron windows, while the other six remained projecting from the walls in which they had been originally inserted; a large pile of heavy cut stones and masses of brick fell down at the south and at the north doors; seven of the large frontpipes of the organ were thrown out by the violence of the shock, and many of the metal and wooden pipes within displaced; the massive basin of the font was tossed from the pedestal on which it rested, and pitched upon the pavement beneath uninjured. Thus, within the space of three minutes, this church was reduced to a pile of crumbling ruins; the walls that were left standing being rent in every part, the main roof only remaining sound, being supported by the hard wood pillars.” The entrance from the southern side into the cathedral, which was erected in 1789, included two imposing statues, one of Saint John the Divine and the other of Saint John the Baptist in flowing robes. It is said that these statues were confiscated by the British Navy from the French ship HMS Temple in Martinique waters in 1756 during the Seven Years’ War and moved to the church. The statues are still in situ and can be seen today, much as they appeared in Bisbee’s painting, but with the new cathedral in the background (Fig. 1). Little is known of the career of Ezra Bisbee. He was born in Sag Harbor, New York in 1808 and appears to have had a career as a political cartoonist and a printmaker. His handsome Portrait of President Andrew Jackson is dated 1833, and several political lithographs...