Honoré Boze (1830-1909) Provençal Woman On Her Donkey

A Provençal woman, dressed in traditional clothing and a straw hat, rides a donkey in a landscape of Haute-Provence.
Two bags are laden on the animal's flanks, perhaps carrying goods from the city or a harvest ?
The rider and her mount appear to be catching up with two hikers higher up the path, in a barren, stony valley that could serve as the setting for a Jean Giono novel.
The artist portrays a deep and wild Provence with a dual personality, capable of charming the traveler with its luminous landscapes, olive groves, and myriad scents of aromatic herbs, but which can also transform into a hostile desert where water becomes a rare commodity and the sun an enemy.
This imposing work is presented in a splendid 19th-century Barbizon frame measuring 97 cm by 130 cm, while the canvas itself measures 62 cm by 97 cm.
A masterful and high-quality work, signed lower left.

His father took him to Paris where he was able to visit exhibitions and Salons.
He developed a passion for the Orientalist paintings of Eugène Fromentin.
He then returned to Provence where he enrolled as a student at the Marseille School of Fine Arts under the direction of Émile Loubon, whose classes he attended.
He married a widow with property in Oran.
This allowed him to travel to Algeria where he found numerous subjects for his paintings.
He exhibited in several exhibitions and Salons.
He was elected to the Academy of Marseille in 1900.

Works in Public Collections:

Marseille Museum of Fine Arts: Portrait of the Widow Loubon, Portrait of the sculptor Aldebert. • Paris, Musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac: Encampment of Arab horsemen near Tlemcen, Algeria, 1872, oil on canvas