Ferdinand Heilbuth - Woman Lying On A Shore - Watercolor

Ferdinand HEILBUTH (Hamburg, 1826 - Paris, 1889)
Woman lying on a shore
Watercolor gouache on paper
32.5x46.5 cm (visible) / 48.5 x 63.5 cm (framed)
Signed lower right "F Heilbuth"
Bibliography: In the time of Marcel Proust. The François-Gérard Seligmann collection at the Carnavalet Museum, (exhibition cat., Paris, Carnavalet Museum, October 31, 2001 - January 20, 2002), Paris, Paris-Musées, 2001, p. 169 (ill.).
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A painter of German origin, Ferdinand Heilbuth moved to Paris to pursue an artistic career. At the Salon, where he presented himself as a student of Charles Gleyre (1806-1874), he exhibited works composed from historical episodes or depicting Roman cardinals from 1853. After a forced exile in London due to the War of 1870, he returned to Paris and specialized in open-air genre scenes, "pages of elegance, high life and bright sunshine which have sealed his reputation.[1]" His success earned him the Legion of Honor and naturalization as a French citizen in 1879.

In 1879, he participated in the creation of the French Watercolour Society. His exhibitions there were particularly noted: "When a group of curious people stopped the traffic, you could run there for sure; you would admire a Heilbuth."[2] The critic of Le Figaro, Albert Wolff, judges that he is, in rendering nature, "a master in his watercolors even more than in his oil paintings."[3]

This gouache watercolor, depicting a young woman lying in the grass, contemplating the sea, holding in her hand some wild flowers picked during her walk, is one of the elegant vacation scenes inviting the viewer to dream that made Heilbuth's reputation. It was part of the collection of the famous dealer and collector François Gérard Seligmann (1912-1999).

[1] Eugène Montrosier, « Heilbuth », Les Artistes Modernes, t.4, Paris, Librairie artistique , 1884, p. 111.
[2] T.G.I., « Causerie », Le Bien public, 26 november 1889, n.p.
[3] Albert Wolff, « Heilbuth », Le Figaro, 22 november 1889, p. 2.