Raphael Ponson (1835 - 1904) — Rocks At Bandol

Rocks at Bandol
Oil on canvas, signed lower left.
38 x 49 cm.

Provenance:
Private collection, South of France.

Certificate of authenticity issued by Mr. Alexis Pentcheff, expert on the artist.

Raphaël Ponson: Official painter of a Provence in transformation

It was undoubtedly first by family tradition that the young man was destined for painting. His father, his grandfather before him, had made it their profession. Originally from the Var, the Ponson family settled in Marseille in the 1840s and a few years later, the young Raphaël Ponson was enrolled at the city's School of Fine Arts. Emile Loubon had been its appreciated director since 1845. He initiated a less restrictive teaching than before, focused on nature and recognizing the students' own sensitivity, encouraging their individuality. He brought in his wake young painters eager to learn on the motif, in true contact with nature, which constituted at the time a small regional revolution. Raphaël Ponson was one of them, still benefiting from a confrontation with masters from diverse horizons, particularly the painters of Barbizon, who, through the Salon of the Society of Friends of the Arts, came to present their works in Marseille. At the end of this apprenticeship, Raphael Ponson decided to go to Paris. At the Louvre, he nourished himself with the art of his predecessors, particularly the landscape masters Poussin and Le Lorrain. Employed in a fan painting workshop, he perfected his style, learning this meticulous technique that his future works on paper would remember. He also discovered Normandy, under a sky so different from the one he had previously painted. Before returning to settle permanently in Marseille, he made the traditional artistic pilgrimage to Italy: Rome, Venice and especially Naples, where he rediscovered his beloved Mediterranean stretching out at the foot of Vesuvius. Back in Marseille from 1859, Raphael Ponson settled into his family and professional life. He married Marie Lefèvre in 1862 and three children were born from this union. His submissions to the Parisian salons began in 1861 and were a real success. Prestigious public commissions were not long in coming, and in 1865, Charles Emile de Maupas, prefect of Bouches-du-Rhône, commissioned the artist to create the decor for the gallery of the private apartments of the new prefecture of Marseille, which would be inaugurated in 1867. The same year, he presented a large composition at the Universal Exhibition. The painter, who was making a name for himself, was soon entrusted with the creation of the decor for three rooms of the Natural History Museum housed in the Palais Longchamp, an emblematic building of the second half of the 19th century erected to commemorate the arrival in Marseille of the waters of the Durance. Around 1878, he set up his studio in a private mansion on rue Sénac and continued to make a comfortable living from his painting, attracting the support of many amateurs and tackling various decorative commissions that were placed with him both privately and publicly. At the dawn of the new century, however, the explosion of innovative pictorial movements caused him to lose some of the interest of critics and the public. After his death, the artist's studio remained closed for almost thirty years. It was not until 1932 that his daughter, in response to numerous requests, agreed to a retrospective exhibition at the Caors-Cottier gallery in Marseille. Alexis Pentcheff is a recognized specialist in the painter Raphaël Ponson. He dedicated a monograph to him in 2008 and has been cataloging the artist's production for several years with a view to creating a catalogue raisonné of his work. From March 30 to August 28, 2016, the Musée Regards de Provence paid tribute to this artist through the exhibition: Lumière et Douceur by Raphael Ponson. 

Discover more works by this artist on the gallery's website: https://www.galeriepentcheff.fr/fr/peintre-raphael-ponson#Bio