Large Painting Still Life With Asparagus Alfred Tourillon Lagny Group 19th Century

Still life with asparagus, fish and lemons
Alfred Édouard Tourillon
Late 19th century
Oil on canvas, signed lower right

Dimensions: 106 x 92 cm with frame. Width of molding: 12 cm.

Framing: large gilded frame with burgundy velvet marie-louise from the 20th century.

Beautiful large-format still life depicting a market or fishing return: bunches of white and purple asparagus, small fish arranged in the foreground, lemons, upside-down basket and blue and white earthenware pot. The whole is constructed in a meticulous horizontal composition, typical of late 19th-century naturalistic still life, where objects are treated as pretexts for the study of materials, reflections and contrasts.

The painting is signed lower right Alfred Édouard Tourillon. The brushstroke is lively, precise without being dry, with fine attention paid to textures: the satiny skin of lemons, the silvery flesh of fish, the moist transparency of scales, the pearly whiteness of asparagus and the purplish accents of tips. The painting successfully contrasts the deliberately sober brown background with the light values of the foreground. This economy of decoration allows the eye to focus on the pictorial quality of the objects.

The subject is part of the great French tradition of kitchen and market still lifes, heir to 18th-century compositions, but treated here with a more naturalistic, bourgeois sensibility typical of the second half of the 19th century. Here, we find a balance between faithful observation, decorative elegance and the pleasure of the material. The presence of the asparagus, basket, fish and lemons gives the work a very French flavor, halfway between table scene, pantry still life and gastronomic composition.

The finesse of the close-up details is noteworthy: the fish are particularly well observed, with their dark eyes, quick white strokes and metallic reflections. The asparagus, tied in bunches, offer a beautiful interplay of verticals and cylindrical shapes that structure the composition. The lemons add a luminous yellow note that awakens the ensemble and balances the cooler tones of the fish.
Alfred Édouard Tourillon was a French painter born in 1871 in Livry, Seine-et-Oise, now Livry-Gargan, and died in 1942. Trained in particular by Denis-Pierre Bergeret, a leading specialist in still lifes, hunting scenes and table settings, Tourillon was part of the French tradition of naturalist painting, which focused on market produce, fish, game, fruit, vegetables, earthenware and domestic accessories. He was also a member of the Groupe de Lagny, an artistic circle active around Lagny-sur-Marne, which brought together several painters marked by naturalism, pleinairism and post-impressionist research. This connection gives his work an interesting place between the still-life tradition of the 19th century and modern sensitivity to the effects of light, matter and atmosphere. A well-documented site devoted to Alfred Édouard Tourillon traces his career, his preferred subjects and several comparable works, enabling us to better situate his production in the context of French painting in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.