When a 1994 exhibition of the work of the Norwegian painter Frits Thaulow (1847-1906) referred to him as the "French Norwegian", it was pretty close to the mark [1]. Thaulow had spent a good deal of his career in France, even settling there fairly permanently after 1892. His personal acquaintance with Claude Monet and Paul Gauguin (who was Thaulow's brother-in-law) meant that he was well-versed in the ways of French art and impressionism. Although he never fully crossed the line from realism to impressionism, his ability to combine some of the Impressionist's methods with a keen eye for realist depictions meant that his work was much in demand in France, Germany and the USA during his lifetime.
Frits Thaulow was born into comfortable circumstances in Oslo in 1847. Having decided at a young age that he wanted to become an artist, he studied at the Royal Academy of Drawing in Oslo between 1862-63. Between 1871-74 he studied in Copenhagen and at the Art School in Karlsruhe, Germany, where he was supervised by the Norwegian marine painter Hans Gude.
From the late 1870s on, Thaulow's was a peripatetic life, traveling between France and Norway. He started participating in group exhibitions in Paris, Berlin and Oslo throughout the 1870s and 1880s. His work was rated highly enough for him to start being represented by the famous Parisian Galerie Georges Petit from 1893 onwards, who often exhibited Thaulow's work alongside that of Impressionists like Monet and Sisley. By this stage he had become a visible fixture of the modern art scene in Paris, and he was instrumental in revitalising the alternative Paris Salon, the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, in the 1890s together with artists like Puvis de Chavannes, Rodin and Meissonnier.
Thaulow reserved his best work for the annual exhibitions at the Salon. This was indeed where he first exhibited our painting in 1904, under the simple title "La Neige", or "Snow" [2]. The scene chosen as the subject of the painting is a street in the small town of Amiens, just north of Paris. Thaulow had visited Amiens around 1895/6, when he was himself living in Dieppe. He returned there again in 1902, and then in 1904, his eye being drawn to the town's old quarter, the Saint Leu district. Our painting shows the medieval hospital building, the "L'Hôtel-Dieu" on the right, with the painter standing at the top of the Rue Taillefer. The Rue Taillefer still exists today, although the old hospital building has been largely destroyed. Old picture postcards show that Thaulow's depiction of the scene is pretty close to reality, even as it looks today.
Thaulow evidently liked this particular painting, and he also produced an etching based on it, which ran to some 200 impressions - although with certain details altered. For example, the woman holding the umbrella walking towards the bridge has, in the etching, been switched to a position on the other side of the Hospital building [3]. A study of our painting also exists, which Thaulow gave as an inscribed present to his friend, the actor Charles le Bargy. This is yet more evidence of the artist's sense of achievement at this particular composition [4].
It is not surprising that Thaulow should have chosen this particular spot in Amiens. One of his strengths as a painter was his ability to capture the essence of moving water, in rivers or streams. Similarly, he was equally interested in painting other elements of nature, such as snow. In our painting, he has used quick flicks of the brush to denote the streaming water, contrasting it with the snow covering the street and the deep-red brickwork of the building. In the distance, smoke billowing from a factory chimney fills the distant sky. Thaulow's mastery of detail gives the viewer a sense of an impression of an ordinary street scene, both visually attractive and "realistic". Always a confident and bullish man, this painting is a confident work of art by an artist at the summit of his abilities.
By the time the artist died in 1906, whilst on a trip to Holland in order to paint Dutch towns and landscapes, his work had been sold far and wide. Frits Thaulow's work is today represented in all leading museums in the USA (for example Philadelphia and Minneapolis ), France (for example the Musée d'Orsay, Petit Palais, Paris, Bordeaux, Dieppe, Reims, Strasbourg) and Scandinavia (Oslo).
___________________________________
1 . "Frits Thaulow - un norvégien français". Exhibition at the Musée Rodin, Paris; 27 June to 25 September 1994.
2. We thank Vidar Poulsson for providing this information.
3. The etching was issued by the Galerie Georges Petit in 1904 under the title "Le Pont d' Amiens" (45 x 58 cm). See: Frits Thaulow. Paysagiste par nature (Caen, 2016), p. 178.
4. The study was sold as lot 34 at Bonhams London, auction 29 October 2008.
Frits Thaulow was born into comfortable circumstances in Oslo in 1847. Having decided at a young age that he wanted to become an artist, he studied at the Royal Academy of Drawing in Oslo between 1862-63. Between 1871-74 he studied in Copenhagen and at the Art School in Karlsruhe, Germany, where he was supervised by the Norwegian marine painter Hans Gude.
From the late 1870s on, Thaulow's was a peripatetic life, traveling between France and Norway. He started participating in group exhibitions in Paris, Berlin and Oslo throughout the 1870s and 1880s. His work was rated highly enough for him to start being represented by the famous Parisian Galerie Georges Petit from 1893 onwards, who often exhibited Thaulow's work alongside that of Impressionists like Monet and Sisley. By this stage he had become a visible fixture of the modern art scene in Paris, and he was instrumental in revitalising the alternative Paris Salon, the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, in the 1890s together with artists like Puvis de Chavannes, Rodin and Meissonnier.
Thaulow reserved his best work for the annual exhibitions at the Salon. This was indeed where he first exhibited our painting in 1904, under the simple title "La Neige", or "Snow" [2]. The scene chosen as the subject of the painting is a street in the small town of Amiens, just north of Paris. Thaulow had visited Amiens around 1895/6, when he was himself living in Dieppe. He returned there again in 1902, and then in 1904, his eye being drawn to the town's old quarter, the Saint Leu district. Our painting shows the medieval hospital building, the "L'Hôtel-Dieu" on the right, with the painter standing at the top of the Rue Taillefer. The Rue Taillefer still exists today, although the old hospital building has been largely destroyed. Old picture postcards show that Thaulow's depiction of the scene is pretty close to reality, even as it looks today.
Thaulow evidently liked this particular painting, and he also produced an etching based on it, which ran to some 200 impressions - although with certain details altered. For example, the woman holding the umbrella walking towards the bridge has, in the etching, been switched to a position on the other side of the Hospital building [3]. A study of our painting also exists, which Thaulow gave as an inscribed present to his friend, the actor Charles le Bargy. This is yet more evidence of the artist's sense of achievement at this particular composition [4].
It is not surprising that Thaulow should have chosen this particular spot in Amiens. One of his strengths as a painter was his ability to capture the essence of moving water, in rivers or streams. Similarly, he was equally interested in painting other elements of nature, such as snow. In our painting, he has used quick flicks of the brush to denote the streaming water, contrasting it with the snow covering the street and the deep-red brickwork of the building. In the distance, smoke billowing from a factory chimney fills the distant sky. Thaulow's mastery of detail gives the viewer a sense of an impression of an ordinary street scene, both visually attractive and "realistic". Always a confident and bullish man, this painting is a confident work of art by an artist at the summit of his abilities.
By the time the artist died in 1906, whilst on a trip to Holland in order to paint Dutch towns and landscapes, his work had been sold far and wide. Frits Thaulow's work is today represented in all leading museums in the USA (for example Philadelphia and Minneapolis ), France (for example the Musée d'Orsay, Petit Palais, Paris, Bordeaux, Dieppe, Reims, Strasbourg) and Scandinavia (Oslo).
___________________________________
1 . "Frits Thaulow - un norvégien français". Exhibition at the Musée Rodin, Paris; 27 June to 25 September 1994.
2. We thank Vidar Poulsson for providing this information.
3. The etching was issued by the Galerie Georges Petit in 1904 under the title "Le Pont d' Amiens" (45 x 58 cm). See: Frits Thaulow. Paysagiste par nature (Caen, 2016), p. 178.
4. The study was sold as lot 34 at Bonhams London, auction 29 October 2008.
Winter in Amiens, 1904
Signed lower right: "Frits Thaulow"
Oil on canvas
65 x 81 cm
Provenance
Collection Léon Payen, France, 1904;His sale at the Hôtel Drouot, as nr. 137, Paris, June 1916;
Collection Dr Valentin Fürst, Norway;
Norwegian Private Collection
Exhibitions
Salon (Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts), Paris, 1904, as nr. 1203: La NeigeLiterature
Catalogue de M. Léon Payen: Catalogue des Tableaux Modernes, Paris, 1916, as nr. 137 ( L' Hôpital d' Amiens; neige) with a picture of the painting reproduced in the catalogue.Frits Thaulow. Paysagiste par nature, exh. cat. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Caen, 2016, mentioned on p. 176.
Our painting is accompanied by an expert opinion by Mr Vidar Poulsson, dated 14 December 2017. Mr Poulsson is the leading scholar on the work of Frits Thaulow and he has seen the painting personally.
When a 1994 exhibition of the work of the Norwegian painter Frits Thaulow (1847-1906) referred to him as the "French Norwegian", it was pretty close to the mark [1]. Thaulow had spent a good deal of his career in France, even settling there fairly permanently after 1892. His personal acquaintance with Claude Monet and Paul Gauguin (who was Thaulow's brother-in-law) meant that he was well-versed in the ways of French art and impressionism. Although he never fully crossed the line from realism to impressionism, his ability to combine some of the Impressionist's methods with a keen eye for realist depictions meant that his work was much in demand in France, Germany and the USA during his lifetime.
Frits Thaulow was born into comfortable circumstances in Oslo in 1847. Having decided at a young age that he wanted to become an artist, he studied at the Royal Academy of Drawing in Oslo between 1862-63. Between 1871-74 he studied in Copenhagen and at the Art School in Karlsruhe, Germany, where he was supervised by the Norwegian marine painter Hans Gude.
From the late 1870s on, Thaulow's was a peripatetic life, traveling between France and Norway. He started participating in group exhibitions in Paris, Berlin and Oslo throughout the 1870s and 1880s. His work was rated highly enough for him to start being represented by the famous Parisian Galerie Georges Petit from 1893 onwards, who often exhibited Thaulow's work alongside that of Impressionists like Monet and Sisley. By this stage he had become a visible fixture of the modern art scene in Paris, and he was instrumental in revitalising the alternative Paris Salon, the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, in the 1890s together with artists like Puvis de Chavannes, Rodin and Meissonnier.
Thaulow reserved his best work for the annual exhibitions at the Salon. This was indeed where he first exhibited our painting in 1904, under the simple title "La Neige", or "Snow" [2]. The scene chosen as the subject of the painting is a street in the small town of Amiens, just north of Paris. Thaulow had visited Amiens around 1895/6, when he was himself living in Dieppe. He returned there again in 1902, and then in 1904, his eye being drawn to the town's old quarter, the Saint Leu district. Our painting shows the medieval hospital building, the "L'Hôtel-Dieu" on the right, with the painter standing at the top of the Rue Taillefer. The Rue Taillefer still exists today, although the old hospital building has been largely destroyed. Old picture postcards show that Thaulow's depiction of the scene is pretty close to reality, even as it looks today.
Thaulow evidently liked this particular painting, and he also produced an etching based on it, which ran to some 200 impressions - although with certain details altered. For example, the woman holding the umbrella walking towards the bridge has, in the etching, been switched to a position on the other side of the Hospital building [3]. A study of our painting also exists, which Thaulow gave as an inscribed present to his friend, the actor Charles le Bargy. This is yet more evidence of the artist's sense of achievement at this particular composition [4].
It is not surprising that Thaulow should have chosen this particular spot in Amiens. One of his strengths as a painter was his ability to capture the essence of moving water, in rivers or streams. Similarly, he was equally interested in painting other elements of nature, such as snow. In our painting, he has used quick flicks of the brush to denote the streaming water, contrasting it with the snow covering the street and the deep-red brickwork of the building. In the distance, smoke billowing from a factory chimney fills the distant sky. Thaulow's mastery of detail gives the viewer a sense of an impression of an ordinary street scene, both visually attractive and "realistic". Always a confident and bullish man, this painting is a confident work of art by an artist at the summit of his abilities.
By the time the artist died in 1906, whilst on a trip to Holland in order to paint Dutch towns and landscapes, his work had been sold far and wide. Frits Thaulow's work is today represented in all leading museums in the USA (for example Philadelphia and Minneapolis ), France (for example the Musée d'Orsay, Petit Palais, Paris, Bordeaux, Dieppe, Reims, Strasbourg) and Scandinavia (Oslo).
___________________________________
1 . "Frits Thaulow - un norvégien français". Exhibition at the Musée Rodin, Paris; 27 June to 25 September 1994.
2. We thank Vidar Poulsson for providing this information.
3. The etching was issued by the Galerie Georges Petit in 1904 under the title "Le Pont d' Amiens" (45 x 58 cm). See: Frits Thaulow. Paysagiste par nature (Caen, 2016), p. 178.
4. The study was sold as lot 34 at Bonhams London, auction 29 October 2008.
Frits Thaulow was born into comfortable circumstances in Oslo in 1847. Having decided at a young age that he wanted to become an artist, he studied at the Royal Academy of Drawing in Oslo between 1862-63. Between 1871-74 he studied in Copenhagen and at the Art School in Karlsruhe, Germany, where he was supervised by the Norwegian marine painter Hans Gude.
From the late 1870s on, Thaulow's was a peripatetic life, traveling between France and Norway. He started participating in group exhibitions in Paris, Berlin and Oslo throughout the 1870s and 1880s. His work was rated highly enough for him to start being represented by the famous Parisian Galerie Georges Petit from 1893 onwards, who often exhibited Thaulow's work alongside that of Impressionists like Monet and Sisley. By this stage he had become a visible fixture of the modern art scene in Paris, and he was instrumental in revitalising the alternative Paris Salon, the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, in the 1890s together with artists like Puvis de Chavannes, Rodin and Meissonnier.
Thaulow reserved his best work for the annual exhibitions at the Salon. This was indeed where he first exhibited our painting in 1904, under the simple title "La Neige", or "Snow" [2]. The scene chosen as the subject of the painting is a street in the small town of Amiens, just north of Paris. Thaulow had visited Amiens around 1895/6, when he was himself living in Dieppe. He returned there again in 1902, and then in 1904, his eye being drawn to the town's old quarter, the Saint Leu district. Our painting shows the medieval hospital building, the "L'Hôtel-Dieu" on the right, with the painter standing at the top of the Rue Taillefer. The Rue Taillefer still exists today, although the old hospital building has been largely destroyed. Old picture postcards show that Thaulow's depiction of the scene is pretty close to reality, even as it looks today.
Thaulow evidently liked this particular painting, and he also produced an etching based on it, which ran to some 200 impressions - although with certain details altered. For example, the woman holding the umbrella walking towards the bridge has, in the etching, been switched to a position on the other side of the Hospital building [3]. A study of our painting also exists, which Thaulow gave as an inscribed present to his friend, the actor Charles le Bargy. This is yet more evidence of the artist's sense of achievement at this particular composition [4].
It is not surprising that Thaulow should have chosen this particular spot in Amiens. One of his strengths as a painter was his ability to capture the essence of moving water, in rivers or streams. Similarly, he was equally interested in painting other elements of nature, such as snow. In our painting, he has used quick flicks of the brush to denote the streaming water, contrasting it with the snow covering the street and the deep-red brickwork of the building. In the distance, smoke billowing from a factory chimney fills the distant sky. Thaulow's mastery of detail gives the viewer a sense of an impression of an ordinary street scene, both visually attractive and "realistic". Always a confident and bullish man, this painting is a confident work of art by an artist at the summit of his abilities.
By the time the artist died in 1906, whilst on a trip to Holland in order to paint Dutch towns and landscapes, his work had been sold far and wide. Frits Thaulow's work is today represented in all leading museums in the USA (for example Philadelphia and Minneapolis ), France (for example the Musée d'Orsay, Petit Palais, Paris, Bordeaux, Dieppe, Reims, Strasbourg) and Scandinavia (Oslo).
___________________________________
1 . "Frits Thaulow - un norvégien français". Exhibition at the Musée Rodin, Paris; 27 June to 25 September 1994.
2. We thank Vidar Poulsson for providing this information.
3. The etching was issued by the Galerie Georges Petit in 1904 under the title "Le Pont d' Amiens" (45 x 58 cm). See: Frits Thaulow. Paysagiste par nature (Caen, 2016), p. 178.
4. The study was sold as lot 34 at Bonhams London, auction 29 October 2008.
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