Alexandre Couder - Flowers From The Field

Alexandre Jules COUDER
Paris, 1808 – Paris, 1879
Bouquet of Wildflowers
Oil on canvas
50 x 61 cm (70 x 81 cm with frame)
Signed and dated lower right “Alex Couder / 69 ”
Very beautiful frame with fluted moldings and decorated with palmettes
Very good condition

Alexandre Couder was an academic painter who studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris beginning in 1824 under Gros. A Salon painter, he exhibited in Paris beginning in 1833, notably showcasing beautiful still lifes.
Toward the end of his life, his art became freer in both composition and execution. This coincided with a period, beginning around 1870, when painting—particularly still life—sought to be more free-form. Artists no longer painted bouquets of flowers in vases or on entablatures, but rather scattered flowers or flowers emerging from the garden, for example.
In Couder’s work, the colors are always beautiful, and the composition features a profusion of flowers—as seen here, poppies, daisies, and field bindweed.