THIS OBJECT WAS SOLD
Antoine Ponthus-cinier - Animated View Of The Touggourt Gate (algeria) - Oil On Canvas - 1880
Antoine Claude PONTHUS-CINIER (1812 - 1885)
Vue animée de la porte de Touggourt (Algérie)
Oil on canvas
Authenticated by the artist's hand in an accompanying document
100.5 × 65 cm - With frame: 116 × 80 cm
Very good condition
In the foreground, a dirt path leads the eye to a fortified gate with round arch, pierced in a crenellated adobe rampart flanked by a square watchtower. Behind the walls, a white dome and a square minaret with a light-colored crown. The scene is animated by figures in white burnous - one riding a donkey, others walking or lingering near a body of water - while tall date palms punctuate the climb towards a vast, luminous sky. The uniform golden light that bathes the whole betrays the eye trained in classical landscape and Italianate veduta, here transposed onto a Saharan subject.
Trained in Paris by Paul Delaroche, Ponthus-Cinier won second prize in the Grand Prix de Rome in 1841, spent two years in Italy, then returned to Lyon, where he exhibited regularly and received numerous commissions. Considered the leading exponent of the Lyon landscape school in the mid-19th century, he devoted most of his work to landscapes of the Rhone region and Italian memories, in a neoclassical, predominantly Arcadian style.
The composition is directly inspired by a woodcut drawn by A. de Bar and published in Le Tour du Monde (Librairie Hachette, Paris, vol. 4, 1861), under the caption "Touggourt". Ponthus-Cinier faithfully reproduces the layout - fortified gate, palm trees, minaret, rider on donkey, water in the foreground - transposing it to oils and enriching it with his own coloristic and atmospheric treatment. This practice of pictorial recomposition from illustrated engraved sources was common among landscape painters of his time, particularly for geographically inaccessible subjects.
The present panel belongs to a series of eight canvases executed on commission for the salon of M. Villard's home in Saint-Germain-au-Mont-d'Or. Ponthus-Cinier himself reproduced all these compositions in his Librum Veritatis - a personal register authenticating his works, bequeathed to Lyon's Bibliothèque des Beaux-Arts and now kept at the city's Bibliothèque municipale -, where the present scene is clearly identifiable (see photo). Although unsigned, the panel is thus authenticated by the artist's own hand.
The work is one of the rare Orientalist forays by Ponthus-Cinier, of whom only three such subjects are known to date. Two are among the eight panels in the series.
In very good condition, this work has been cleaned, mounted on stretcher, lightly restored and framed after its acquisition at a sale in 2025. On the back, traces of the plaster that covered the wall on which the canvas was mounted can be seen.
Frame: large, high-quality modern baguette, with gilded matte effects.
Provenance: M. Villard, Saint-Germain-au-Mont-d'Or (commissioned directly from the artist), circa 1880; auction sale, Maison Conan-Belleville, Lyon, 2025; private collection.
Bibliography/archives:
- Librum Veritatis by Antoine Claude Ponthus-Cinier, Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon (autograph reproduction of the work).
- A. de Bar (drawing), "Touggourt", woodcut, Le Tour du Monde, Librairie Hachette, Paris, vol. 4, 1861 (iconographic source).
Work on view at the gallery (07240).
Shipping: please contact us for shipping costs in France and abroad.
Vue animée de la porte de Touggourt (Algérie)
Oil on canvas
Authenticated by the artist's hand in an accompanying document
100.5 × 65 cm - With frame: 116 × 80 cm
Very good condition
In the foreground, a dirt path leads the eye to a fortified gate with round arch, pierced in a crenellated adobe rampart flanked by a square watchtower. Behind the walls, a white dome and a square minaret with a light-colored crown. The scene is animated by figures in white burnous - one riding a donkey, others walking or lingering near a body of water - while tall date palms punctuate the climb towards a vast, luminous sky. The uniform golden light that bathes the whole betrays the eye trained in classical landscape and Italianate veduta, here transposed onto a Saharan subject.
Trained in Paris by Paul Delaroche, Ponthus-Cinier won second prize in the Grand Prix de Rome in 1841, spent two years in Italy, then returned to Lyon, where he exhibited regularly and received numerous commissions. Considered the leading exponent of the Lyon landscape school in the mid-19th century, he devoted most of his work to landscapes of the Rhone region and Italian memories, in a neoclassical, predominantly Arcadian style.
The composition is directly inspired by a woodcut drawn by A. de Bar and published in Le Tour du Monde (Librairie Hachette, Paris, vol. 4, 1861), under the caption "Touggourt". Ponthus-Cinier faithfully reproduces the layout - fortified gate, palm trees, minaret, rider on donkey, water in the foreground - transposing it to oils and enriching it with his own coloristic and atmospheric treatment. This practice of pictorial recomposition from illustrated engraved sources was common among landscape painters of his time, particularly for geographically inaccessible subjects.
The present panel belongs to a series of eight canvases executed on commission for the salon of M. Villard's home in Saint-Germain-au-Mont-d'Or. Ponthus-Cinier himself reproduced all these compositions in his Librum Veritatis - a personal register authenticating his works, bequeathed to Lyon's Bibliothèque des Beaux-Arts and now kept at the city's Bibliothèque municipale -, where the present scene is clearly identifiable (see photo). Although unsigned, the panel is thus authenticated by the artist's own hand.
The work is one of the rare Orientalist forays by Ponthus-Cinier, of whom only three such subjects are known to date. Two are among the eight panels in the series.
In very good condition, this work has been cleaned, mounted on stretcher, lightly restored and framed after its acquisition at a sale in 2025. On the back, traces of the plaster that covered the wall on which the canvas was mounted can be seen.
Frame: large, high-quality modern baguette, with gilded matte effects.
Provenance: M. Villard, Saint-Germain-au-Mont-d'Or (commissioned directly from the artist), circa 1880; auction sale, Maison Conan-Belleville, Lyon, 2025; private collection.
Bibliography/archives:
- Librum Veritatis by Antoine Claude Ponthus-Cinier, Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon (autograph reproduction of the work).
- A. de Bar (drawing), "Touggourt", woodcut, Le Tour du Monde, Librairie Hachette, Paris, vol. 4, 1861 (iconographic source).
Work on view at the gallery (07240).
Shipping: please contact us for shipping costs in France and abroad.
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