Signed and dated lower left: Eug. Le Poittevin 1855.

Frost & Reed Ltd., London (as a pair with another work, Winter); Doyle, New York, April 2, 1980, lot 152 (as Harvest repast); Acquired by the present owner from the above.

Eugène Le Poittevin (French, 1806-1870) L'été en Normandie, 1855 Oil on canvas 40 x 64 inches (101.6 x 162.6 cm) Signed and dated lower left: Eug. Le Poittevin 1855. Property from the Estate of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Morris Graham, Sr., El Paso, Texas PROVENANCE: Frost & Reed Ltd., London (as a pair with another work, Winter); Doyle, New York, April 2, 1980, lot 152 (as Harvest repast); Acquired by the present owner from the above. Eugène Le Poittevin achieved early and lifelong success as a landscape and marine painter. He was an enormously versatile artist whose work ranged from proto-Impressionistic realism à la Corot to erotic caricatures, expansive battle scenes, and paintings such as this one, which possesses a strong stylistic flashback to the decorative Rococo. In recent decades, his works painted in the region of the quaint village of Étretat in Normandy have attracted significant scholarly attention, owing to their early focus upon the site as a subject for painting. Étretat's sheer white cliffs, with their distinctive rock formation in the form of an elephant dipping its truck into the sea, the landscape around the coast, the fisherfolk, and the Parisian colony which began to gather there around him all became the subject of his art. In 1851, Le Poittevin had made enough money from his paintings to build a chalet there, just a hundred meters from the childhood home of his friend Guy de Maupassant. He also built a studio by the sea, where Gustave Courbet painted his famous Wave series. Monet eventually painted Étretat as well, but according to Alexandre Dumas, "Le Poittevin invented Étretat." The present work is set in the fields above the beach at Étretat, the white cliffs visible in the distance. HID12401132022 © 2024 Heritage Auctions | All Rights Reserved

Lined canvas. Frame abrasion at edges, particularly left and right edges. Very slight yellowing to the varnish layer. Very faint craquelure throughout. A few scattered small dots of loss and minor surface abrasion. Not examined out of frame due to size. Under UV: varnish fluoresces green unevenly. Brushy retouching at edges, most notably in lower right corner. Finely applied strengthening to the darkest shadows of the central tableau. Finely applied retouching to the central man's forehead and to the adjacent standing woman's neck. Some additional small dots and dashes of finely applied retouching scattered throughout. Framed Dimensions 46 X 70 X 3.25 Inches