Sigismond JEANÈS

(Nancy 1863 - 1952)

A November Evening on Lake Garda, Val du Col Loppio, Trentino

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Watercolour on silk, mounted on panel.
Signed Jeanes at the right centre.
Inscribed by the artist Lac de Garde / Vue du col di loppio / soir de Novembre on the backing panel.
332 x 409 mm. (13 1/8 x 16 1/8 in.)
 
An exhibition of thirty watercolours by Sigismond Jeanès, held at the art gallery of the John Wanamaker department store in New York in 1921, led one critic to note that ‘These paintings, of Venice, the Dolomites, the côte d’azure, and other romantic spots of France and Italy, are characteristic of this great master of the water-color medium. Rarely does one see color combined with line to produce effects of such power. In oil they would be remarkable pictures, in water color they are prodigious.’

 
The landscape painter Sigismond Jean-Ernest Jeanès was largely self-taught as an artist. The early part of his career seems to have been spent travelling extensively around Europe, and as far afield as China and India. Jeanès worked extensively in Italy and the South Tyrol, painting views of the Dolomites, the Alps and Venice. He exhibited at the Salon d’Automne from 1906 onwards, and also at the Société des Artistes Indépendants, showing mountain landscapes in watercolours and tempera, with a particular emphasis on atmospheric light effects. Writing of a view of Venice exhibited by the artist at the Salon d’Automne of 1906, the author Maurice Guillemot noted, ‘Jeanès will perhaps equal Turner with his painting Sunrise in Venice: he uses watercolour in a very particular way, in imprecise blonde shades, with warm tones, like cotton wool, in an apotheosis of Wagnerian colouring.’

In 1911 Jeanès participated in the Exposition de la Société Internationale de la Peinture à l’Eau, alongside such artists as Albert Besnard. Parisian gallery exhibitions of works by Jeanès were held at the Galerie Chaine & Simonson in 1911 and at the Galerie Druet in 1920. While year of the artist’s death has been variously given as either 1939 or 1952, he appears to have published a book, entitled D’après nature, souvenirs et portraits, in 1946. Works by Jeanès are in the collections of the Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, as well as the museums of Marseille and Troyes.

Sigismond JEANÈS

A November Evening on Lake Garda, Val du Col Loppio, Trentino