Offered by Galerie FC Paris
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Signed lower right
Oil on copper (excellent condition, no damage)
Presented in a period Louis XIV carved wooden frame with its original gilding — “Berain model.”
Dimensions with frame: 45 × 54 cm. Copper alone: 31 × 40 cm.
On the road passing through the hamlet, two gentlemen make a brief stop in front of an inn amidst a lush, abundant landscape.
The artist depicts this moment with great charm and poetry.
The Flemish painter Carel van Falens (baptized in Antwerp on November 24, 1683 – died in Paris, May 26, 1733) was also a draftsman, restorer, and art dealer. He specialized in hunting scenes and military encampments, in the style of the Dutch battle and horse painter Philips Wouwerman. He spent most of his life in France, where he became a court painter and a member of the Royal Academy.
On July 16, 1716, he married at Saint-Thomas Church in Paris Maria Francisca (Marie-Françoise) Slodtz, the 18-year-old daughter of the Antwerp sculptor Sébastien Slodtz, who had settled in Paris to work on royal buildings. The couple was granted accommodation at the Louvre at the King’s expense and had ten children.
During the Regency, the Duke of Orléans commissioned van Falens to restore several of his paintings. After the Duke’s death, van Falens was appointed Ordinary Painter to King Louis XV in 1724 and admitted to the Royal Academy in 1726. The work he submitted for admission was a hunting scene, later hung by the academicians in a place of honor.
He died in Paris on May 26, 1733, in his apartment at the Louvre at the age of 49, and was buried the next day by his three brothers-in-law: Sébastien Antoine, Jean-Baptiste, and Paul Ambroise Slodtz.
Excellent state of preservation.
