Antoine Gadan (1854-1934) - Orientalist - The Fruit Basket - Oil Painting

Oil painting on canvas by Antoine Gadan (born in Seurre, Côte-d'Or, in 1854 and died in Bône, Annaba, Algeria, in 1934).
"The Basket of Fruit," oil painting on a stretcher, depicting grapes and a pomegranate, signed lower left, undated.
The canvas measures 51 cm high x 74 cm wide.
The frame is 10 cm wide by 7 cm deep.
Additional information: On the back of the frame is a label from the framer, "Mr. François Camilleri, Wood Gilder, Frames, 6 rue Neuve Saint Augustin – Bône."
Bibliography:
Antoine Gadan arrived in Algiers at the age of 27 in 1881 and lived on a farm belonging to the Count of Sonis near Bône (Annaba).
He painted rural subjects, earning him the nickname "the painter of herbs."
His painting is full of poetry and sincerity.
Gadan was a local luminary in Bône, exhibiting at the 1900 Universal Exposition, where he received the Vermeil Medal from Rochegrosse.
Many of his works are preserved in the Fine Arts Museums of Algiers and Constantine.
Antoine Gadan, born in Seurre in the Côte-d'Or region, learned his craft as a painter in his native land, self-taught, as evidenced by a few early works depicting the Burgundy countryside.
However, it was in his adopted country, Algeria, that he developed his exceptional talent as a landscape painter.
A large part of the Gadan family, of modest origins—his father was a tavern keeper—left for Algeria in search of a better life, and the young painter, then twenty-seven years old, stayed in Marseille awaiting embarkation with his parents, his brother, his wife, and his first son, Charles.
Two canvases exhibited in Paris in 1895 at the Salon des Artistes Français brought him favorable attention: "The White River at El Kantara" and "Algerian Night."
These were followed by "The Red River at El Kantara" at the 1896 Salon.
Now recognized as a landscape painter and decorator, Gadan was commissioned to create the diorama for the Algerian Pavilion at the Trocadéro during the 1900 Universal Exposition.
He chose to illustrate "The Algerian Coast from Bône to Oran," a pretext for showcasing the most beautiful sites of the Algerian coast in a veritable pictorial journey.
This immense diorama, which was exhibited in London and New York after Paris, was a great public success, while also earning its creator praise from the jury, particularly from the history painter Édouard Detaille and the landscape painter Jules Breton, a member of the Academy of Fine Arts.
Subsequently, Gadan was honored with an exhibition of fifteen canvases at the Constantine Museum in 1908, organized at the initiative of the curator, M. Hinglais.
That same year concluded with a warm reception at the Salon d'Automne in Algiers, where the critic C. Monplessis praised "the intense poem of luminous life" in which unfolds "the fluid amethyst pink through which (Gadan) shows us the Bône dune."
The bard of eastern Algeria was then at his peak, nicknamed the "glory of Bône."
We know little more about the seemingly peaceful and unassuming life of this artist, whose works have earned their place among the finest painters of Algeria.
Museums: Algiers, Constantine, Paris (Porte Dorée and Quai Branly)...