Lively winter landscape, attributed to César Van Loo (1743-1821

French school, late 18th century, attributed to César Van Loo (1743-1821) - Lively winter landscape - Roman countryside.

Panel measuring 60 cm by 41 cm
Superb frame measuring 86 cm by 67 cm

Our painting is part of a series of snowy landscapes painted by the artist. These paintings are luminous, with meticulous details and are animated by numerous characters. In our painting, César Van Loo indulges us with his schoolboy humor with the depiction of one of the characters... with his buttocks in the air! This touch of humor is found in other paintings, notably this winter scene offered for sale in Vienna on April 13, 2011 (Winterlandschaft mit Eisläufern) where we see a young woman who, having lost her balance on the ice, sees her dress deprived of its natural gravity... Dorotheum-Vienna sale of October 13, 2010 (€25,000); (Winterlandschaft mit Eisläufern 102 cm by 63 cm) Sotheby's Monaco sale of December 6, 1987 (€20,000); (Winter Landscape with Travelers and Hunters 98 cm by 74 cm)

César Van Loo (1743-1821)

Julius Caesar Denis van Loo, known as César Van Loo, was the son and pupil of his father, Carle Van Loo. He was a resident of the Académie de France in Rome, without having won the Grand Prix in 1767. He was admitted to the Académie Française in 1784; he lived in Turin from 1791 to 1794. The Gal. Sabauda in Turin preserved several of his landscapes. His winter views, which can be compared to those of his contemporary Taunay, are an attempt at greater realism, carried out under the influence of the 17th-century Dutch. These include Piedmont Landscape under Snow (1801, Fontainebleau), Snow Effect in the Alps (1804, Louvre), and Snow Landscape (1810, Musée d'Autun). Some small-format landscapes (such as those preserved at the Toulouse Museum) demonstrate a sensitivity that places the artist, alongside Valenciennes, among the precursors of Corot.

The Van Loos

Family of French painters of Dutch origin. The most famous is Charles André, known as Carle (Nice 1705-Paris 1765). Trained in Italy, he worked in Rome and Turin. Returning to Paris in 1734, received an academician in 1735, he had a brilliant official career (first painter to the king in 1762). Representative of the "grand style" within the Rococo aesthetic, he devoted himself to various genres: church paintings, mythological compositions, fantasy scenes ("turqueries" for Madame de Pompadour), decorative panels (Bear Hunt, Ostrich Hunt... for the king's cabinet, 1736, today in the Amiens museum), portraits. We should also mention: Jacob (Sluis, Zeeland, around 1614-Paris 1670), mainly a portraitist, settled in Amsterdam, then in Paris; Louis Abraham (Amsterdam around 1656-Nice 1712), his son, who worked in Aix-en-Provence and Toulon and had Carle among his children; Jean-Baptiste (Aix-en-Provence 1684-Aix-en-Provence 1745), Carle's elder brother, a history painter and portraitist full of brilliance and elegance, active in Italy, Paris and London; Louis Michel (Toulon 1707-Paris 1771), son of the former, companion of his uncle Carle in Rome and a good portraitist, who made a career at the court of Spain (1736-1753) and in Paris; Charles Amédée (Rivoli 1719-Paris 1795), brother of the former, especially active at the court of Prussia; César (Paris 1743-Paris 1821), son of Carle, a landscape painter of pre-romantic taste.