Michel Fronti (1862–1936) Old Street In Chateau-gombert – Place Messine

An old street with houses and buildings that seem todefy the laws of gravity, as if, over time, they had settle dinto their foundations and were propping each other up.
A trellis, the foliage of a tree in a courtyard, not tomention a bit of laundry hanging from a window—and there you have all the charm and character of old Provençal villages, with their crumbling whitewashed walls and facades yet resistant to the erosion of time and still standing, witnesses to a past steeped in memories.
The work, in good condition, is presented in a lovely gilded frame with late 19th-century style, measuring 43 cm by 53 cm, with the panel itself measuring 24 cm by 33 cm.
Counter-signed and titled on the back “Place Messine” in ChâteauGombert; I’ll leave it to the locals or historians to pinpoint the exact location…

A student of Lagier in Marseille, and of Benjamin Constant and Lefebvre in Paris, he exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français from 1889 to 1935.
Although his first submission was a painting (the work “A Bite of Bread in Marseille,” in 1889, currently at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Marseille), he subsequently exhibited only pastels (Miss Harriet Strasy, from theThéâtre de la Monnaie in *Messaline*, 1911).
He received an honorable mention in 1920 (*Reclining Woman*, a nude study, pastel) and a silver medal in 1922 for *Indolence* (pastel).
Finally, he also participated in the Salon des Artistes Marseillais, and later in that of the Société des Artistes Provençaux.
In Marseille, the Cantini Museum houses several of hisworks:
*Le repos*, *Maison dans un jardin*, and *Mme Maurice Hubert* (1914).