Adrien Tanoux (1865-1923) Fishing Boats On Land At l'Estaque - Marseille

A time when on the coast around Marseille, traditional flat-bottomed boats (bettes) were pulled ashore.
Adrien Tanoux, the great orientalist painter, took hold of this charming anecdotal subject and treated it in oil on wood panel with vigor and spontaneity, certainly from a first draft during a walk on the seaside.
In excellent condition, the work is offered in a simple, gilded and brown frame which measures 35.5 cm by 44 cm and 25.5 cm by 34 cm for the panel alone.
The work is signed and dated (18)90 lower right.

After studies begun in 1878 at the École des Beaux-Arts in Marseille, Adrien Henri Tanoux entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1886, where he was a student of Léon Bonnat. Initially attracted by popular scenes from distant suburbs and scenes of misery before discovering the sumptuous and erotic vein of a certain orientalism, he exhibited, as early as 1886, Judith Showing the Head of Holofernes to the Jewish People at the Paris Salon, where he was subsequently regularly represented. In 1889, he received an honorable mention at the Paris Universal Exhibition. Gold medalist and hors concours of the Salon des artistes français, he was elected a member of the Société des artistes français in 1905. In 1895, having obtained, in the first round, 26 votes out of 38 voters for his Revendeurs et revancheuses, the Conseil supérieur des beaux-arts awarded him one of its four travel grants which took him to exotic climes. Moving towards genre painting, portraits (official portraitist to the Queen of Holland and President Félix Faure) and orientalist scenes, he acquired a lasting place as a nude painter and also practiced landscapes. Camille Mauclair spoke lyrically of these nudes, he said that disguised as orientalist paintings they brought to mind the enamel of Tassaert and the jewelry of Fortuny. On November 21, 1924, the Jean Charpentier gallery at 76, rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré in Paris opened a retrospective of the works of Adrien Henri Tanoux. This exhibition brought together, along with large canvases made popular thanks to the postcard, small nudes, including the famous illustration of Alfred de Musset's poem, the famous Namouna, the old slave trader presenting two naked girls with different skin tones. Also included were Troubling Perfumes and Thaïs, which are among his most important works. Portraits, a head of a little girl, Rita, one of his last works, which indicates that his place is next to Gustave Ricard, landscapes, interiors, drawings, including 32 nudes out of the 95 pieces exhibited, allowing to have an overview of the work of this artist who was able to free from academicism what linked this poet of the female nude to the masters of the past. At the end of his funeral, on August 1st at the church of Sainte-Marie des Batignolles, his body was placed in the vaults of the church.

Works in public collections

Chambéry, Museum of Fine Arts: The Blue Bird, 1898, oil on canvas.
Grenoble, Museum of Grenoble: Portrait of General Faure-Biguet, oil on canvas.
Marseille: Museum of Fine Arts: Cooks, 1894, oil on canvas; Young Dutch Woman, 1894, oil on canvas; Head of a Dutch Fisherman, 1894, oil on canvas.
Marseille, Cantini Museum: The Kitchen, oil on canvas. Nevers,
Museum of Earthenware and Fine Arts: The Model's Rest, 1923, oil on canvas.
Nice, Museum of Fine Arts of Nice: Thaïs, oil on canvas.
Paris, Petit Palais: The Boilermaker, oil on canvas; Three Men from the Old People's Home, oil on canvas.
Rouen, Museum of Fine Arts: Portrait of the Painter Émile Cagniart, before 1923, oil on canvas.