Gustave Bienvetu (1850 - 1916) Still Life With Fruit - 45 X 57

Beautiful still life depicting a composition of fruit arranged on an entablature, including black and white grapes, peaches, melon and plums, accompanied by a pitcher in the background. The whole is treated in a rich, warm palette, dominated by deep tones that highlight the effects of light on the fruit surfaces.

The painter pays particular attention to textures, finely restoring the velvety skin of the peaches, the transparency of the grapes and the substance of the open melon. The composition, both simple and balanced, is in the tradition of 19th-century French still lifes, where realism is combined with decorative research

Signature lower right

Condition: good overall but old restorations (see photos) and canvas to be re-tensioned.
Price accordingly

Rating:
In public sales, works by Gustave Bienvetu, almost always bouquets, more rarely fruit, sell on average between €1,000 and €4,000 with a record at €10.123 excluding fees for a bouquet of flowers sold at Christies on May 25, 1995 (oil on canvas 55 X 46 cm)

Gustave Bienvêtu was a French painter born on April 22, 1850 in Batignolles-Monceau (Seine) and died on September 15, 1916 in Colombes (Seine).
His father Auguste Étienne Bienvêtu was a richly swaddled foundling child, hence his surname, at Chartres hospital in 1825. In 1850, he married Marie Journal and the same year gave birth to Gustave. The family later settled in Colombes, where Gustave Bienvêtu spent his life painting particularly decorative floral arrangements. He was quite involved in the life of his commune of Colombes. Anti-clerical and republican, he was elected mayor for ten months in 1887[2].A gymnasium and nursery school in Colombes bear his name.