Marie-dominique Siciliano (1879-1909) Returning From Fishing Around Toulon

The simple and professional gestures of the fishermen, the un-enameling of the fish, the mending and repairing of the nets upon returning from a fishing trip while chatting with an elder, who, hands crossed behind his back, must give some advice to the younger ones and pass on his experience.
In the background, under the pines leaning in the wind, an improvised wood fire announces the preparation of a lunch, certainly a bouillabaisse that the fishermen and their wives prepared directly on the seaside, thus using the fish damaged in the nets and difficult to sell on a stall.
All in the atmosphere of a peaceful morning.
The result, a beautiful testimony of a time when people lived simply, without artifice, serene and very often happier than today. The work, done in oil on canvas, is offered in a gilded frame which measures 79 cm by 99 cm and 60 cm by 81 cm for the canvas alone.
It is cleaned, restored and signed and dated (19)04 lower right.
A restful and reassuring painting by an experienced artist and witness of his time.

An artist close to Courdouan or Monticelli who remains a mystery.
Using different techniques, his works are often heterogeneous.
He is considered rather Courdouan-Guigou for orientalist subjects, and false Monticelli for landscapes with figures.
A little-known artist, we know that he lived at 52, rue de la république in Marseille in 1879 and 29, rue Nau in 1900.
We also know that he accompanied Gagliardini to Cassis and that he exhibited at the Salon de Provence in 1907.
The Cantini Museum holds three paintings from southern Algeria (Camparabe from 1902); the Gorges of El Kantara; Herd of Goats in North Africa;
The Museum of Fine Arts in Marseille owns, for its part, "Plaine à Sétif", "Flock of goats from 1909".
He is briefly studied in the Catalogue of the Exhibition l’Orient des provençaux in Marseille, from 1982.
And Aaron, Sheon in the catalogue of the Monticelli exhibition in Pittsburgh from 1978 publishes two non-orientalist paintings by Siciliano, specifying that he is mainly a painter of Plein-Air scenes.
At the "Salon de Provence", Exhibition organized at the Caisse d’Epargne in Marseille in 1907, the name of M-D Siciliano is noted among the exhibitors.