Victor Vignon (1847-1909) Lively Farmyard, 1875. Impressionist, Corot, Van Gogh, Fénéon

4 445 Superb oil on canvas by Victor Vignon depicting a lively farmyard in 1875, signed lower left and dated lower right. Canvas dimensions: 46.5 x 38 cm, 62 x 54 cm including the frame. The canvas is in very good condition for its age of approximately 150 years and is presented in a lovely modern gilt frame. The work is guaranteed authentic. This is indeed a superb and quite rare 19th-century composition by Victor Vignon, rare due to its very early date of 1875, a work created before he was recognized and, more importantly, before he exhibited at the first Impressionist exhibition. This work demonstrates great mastery; one can still clearly feel the influence of his teacher, Camille Corot, but one can already glimpse the first hints of the Impressionist landscape painter he would become. This composition is enlivened by a figure and several farm animals, and the painter also demonstrates his skill in depicting architectural elements. In short, a very beautiful painting by Vignon. Victor Alfred Paul Vignon, born on December 25, 1847 in Villers-Cotterêts (Aisne) and died on March 15, 1909 in Meulan (Seine-et-Oise), was a French landscape painter and engraver belonging to the Impressionist group. Often criticized by editorialists such as Roger Marx and Félix Fénéon, the artist did not achieve widespread renown, although he was highly valued by collectors. Victor Vignon is frequently, and incorrectly, said to be the son of Noémie Cadiot, also known as Claude Vignon, when in fact he was born a legitimate son at the home of his parents, Rémi Victor Vignon (1819-1868), a grocer and wine merchant residing in Villers-Cotterêts, and Catherine Athanase Apoline Bouchard (born in 1826), who had no profession. A student of Camille Corot and advised by Adolphe-Félix Cals, Vignon first worked in Clamart, then in Bougival, and then in La Celle-Saint-Cloud, where he painted Saulaie à Bougival (1877), Le Chemin de la plaine à Bougival, and La Route de la Jonchère à La Celle-Saint-Cloud. He then moved to Pontoise, and later to Jouy-le-Comte. Around 1878-1880, he was in Auvers-sur-Oise in the company of Camille Pissarro, Armand Guillaumin, and Paul Cézanne, where he painted subjects similar to theirs: Chemin de Chaponval (1881), La Côte Saint-Nicolas à Auvers (1882), Masures à Auvers (1883). He then settled in Nesles-la-Vallée, Éragny, and L'Isle-Adam, like Corot. Vignon was very close to Theo and Vincent van Gogh, Dr. Paul Gachet, and the pastry chef, writer, and painter Eugène Murer, who bought four of his paintings: Soleil couchant orageux, effet d'automne (Sunset Stormy, Autumn Effect), Femme à la chèvre, matin d'hiver (Winter Morning), Les Peupliers d'or, matin sauvage (The Golden Poplars, Wild Morning), and Le Dégel (The Thaw). He was also a friend of Frédéric Samuel Cordey and Auguste Renoir. Vignon participated in the fifth, sixth (15 canvases), seventh (15 canvases), and eighth Impressionist exhibitions. The sixth was held from April 2nd to May 1st, 1881, at 35 Boulevard des Capucines. Other participants included Mary Cassatt, Degas, Forain, Gauguin, Guillaumin, Berthe Morisot, Pissarro, Raffaelli, Rouart, Tillot, Vidal, Vignon, and Zandomeneghi. In 1886, Victor Vignon was living in Jouy-le-Comte and participated in the eighth and final Impressionist exhibition, held at the Maison Dorée, now located at 20 Boulevard des Italiens and 1-3 Rue Laffitte in Paris. Auguste Renoir did not participate, having declined the invitation, like others. Besides Vignon, the following artists were present: Marie Bracquemond, Mary Cassatt, Edgar Degas, Jean-Louis Forain, Paul Gauguin, Armand Guillaumin, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, Lucien Pissarro, Odile Redon, Henri Rouart, Émile Schuffenecker, Georges Seurat, who exhibited La Grande Jatte there, Paul Signac, Charles Tillot, and Federico Zandomeneghi. Victor Vignon was attacked as early as 1894 by Roger Marx in the preface to the artist's retrospective organized at Bernheim, who criticized him for having chosen the Dutch masters as his initiators. Marx explained why Vignon was only admitted once to the Paris Salon, in 1878, with Les Châtaigniers un soir d'hiver and La Seine à Bougival un soir de printemps: "This realistic and reflective art systematically earned [him] the rejection of the Salon." Félix Fénéon commented on the 19 paintings presented by Vignon at the 1886 Impressionist exhibition: "P. Vignon piles up rocks, trees, and houses in unchanging and dull arrangements." Vignon joined the Société des peintres-graveurs français in 1891 and subsequently exhibited with the Société nationale des beaux-arts in 1897.