Beschreibung:

Maximilien Luce (French, 1858-1941) "Bord de la Chalouette, Moulineux", 1904 oil on artist board signed and dated lower left, titled en verso with various gallery and shipping labels. Presented in a modern frame. 14-3/4" x 11-3/4", framed 22-1/4" x 19-1/4" Provenance: Paul Martin his sale, Versailles, France, June 2, 1960, lot 72; Hammer Galleries, New York, New York, 1966, inv. no. 19799; Trosby Galleries, Palm Beach, Florida; Bonham's, New York, New York, May 7, 2015. Literature: Bazetoux, Denise. Maximilien Luce catalogue raisonne de l'oeuvre peint, vol. 2. Paris: Editions JBL, 1986, p. 307, no. 1235. Notes: Born into a family of modest means to a railway clerk and a mother whose family was from peasantry origins, Luce always had a deep predilection for the working class. After serving in the military for four years, Luce began his artistic career as an engraver, before turning to painting full time in 1883, when employment opportunities for engravers became scarce, due to advancements in printmaking. Influenced by the Impressionists who advocated plein-air studies, Luce took multiple day trips to the outskirts of Paris - painting the changing effects of sunlight on the woodlands and fields through the juxtaposition of colors quickly applied in wet overlapping impastos through rapid short brush strokes. A fine example of this is the work offered here, which portrays the wooded bank of the Chalouette River in Moulineux, a commune in Ile-de-France, 70 kilometers southwest of Paris. Between 1900 and 1905, Luce painted several sylvan landscapes of the Moulineux region, including "Route de Campagne a Moulineux" sold in these rooms on July 17, 2010 as lot 394. In these works, Luce elucidates the depth of the shaded foliage through layered tertiary blues and greens offset by warm yellows, beiges and pinks created through the mixture of complementary colors.