“Rivière La Marne”, 20th Century French Oil on Canvas Painting by Ducatel

This large (110 inches high) oil on canvas painting depicts a successful hunter, with his felled game displayed near his retriever dogs. Our hunter is leaning against a stone pedestal, clad in blue coat and pants with his rifle beneath his right hand. The man is wearing a gold cap with red fabric attached to it and has a sword on his left hip. Three retriever dogs stand to the hunter’s left, while a fourth sits in front of him (the man appears to be motioning to this dog with his left hand). An orange terra cotta vase adorned with spiral fluting sits on top of a molded plinth at the top of the pedestal. Ivy has begun to wrap around the vase, which also is festooned with green drapery. On a ledge at the base of the pedestal is the felled game: a rabbit and three birds. The hunting display is surrounded by numerous trees and shrubbery. Mountains and a lake can be seen in the background, beneath a blue sky with pink and orange clouds and birds flying. Based on the size and vertical orientation, the scene was most likely part of a French boiserie room...

A beautiful oil on canvas rendering of a stag hunt, presented in a fluted giltwood frame with a bundled husk border and large, parted leaves in the corners. The painting is signed in the lower right corner by the artist, “H. de Forges”, a member of the Barbizon French school of the late 1800s, who specialized in animal hunt scenes. The vibrancy of de Forges’ painting has not diminished over time; the colors seem to pop right off the canvas. A blue sky with some low-lying white clouds hangs above trees mainly bereft of leaves, indicating it is late autumn. Slender grass, ranging from green to brown, surrounds a watering hole in the middle of a clearing, with a single stag near the water’s edge. Eight white hunting dogs with black and tan markings surround the deer on one side of the pond. Behind the pack is a brown horse ridden by a huntsman dressed in red and black, preparing to sound the hunting horn. Two more riders in red, black, and white, also on brown horses, are emerging from a small hill behind the deer. Hunting, always a very important pastime in France, became one of the more popular genres in 19th century art, along with with quality pastoral and landscape paintings. Realism was a defining feature of the Barbizon School, as artists were attracted to spending more time living and painting in the natural world. Our hunt scene depicts the surrounding of prey, or pre-hunt revelry. The beautifully colored oil on canvas stag hunt painting...

Beautiful French mid-20th century modern landscape painting of windmills. Painting has shades of green and yellow with three tan windmills seen in background. Signature in right lowe...

Large painting oil on canvas signed by Aquila representing the wild face of the sea. Extremely dynamic sensation and on the other hand one my see few small boats in a distance away ...