Marie Antoinette Queroy Painting: Bouquet Of Sweet Peas, Art Deco, Dinet, Orientalist

Marie-Antoinette QUEROY (1881–1977) – Bouquet of Sweet Peas – Algeria, circa 1920–1930 – Oil on canvas

A beautiful floral still life by Marie-Antoinette Queroy, depicting a generous bouquet of sweet peas arranged in a turquoise-blue ceramic vase with small handles.

The bouquet consists of sweet peas in a very delicate range of whites, pinks, reds, mauves, and purples. The flowers are depicted at various stages of bloom, from buds that are still closed to fully open blossoms. Their deliberately loose arrangement, with several stems branching out from the central cluster, lends the bouquet a beautiful, natural vitality and a sense of transience.

The composition relies on the contrast between the light, colorful tones of the flowers and the anthracite-gray background. The painting is built up with quick, supple, and sometimes impasto brushstrokes, particularly in the whites and pinks; the stems and foliage are rendered with a more energetic and spontaneous style.

The vase, a deep turquoise blue, structures the lower part of the composition. Its ample form, accentuated by two small rectangular handles, contrasts with the lightness and suppleness of the bouquet. A few highlights suggest the reflections on the ceramic.

Marie-Antoinette Queroy was a French artist. Her work in Algeria is attested to in 1926 by a signed, dated, and geographically specified watercolor depicting the home of the painter Étienne Dinet in Bou Saâda. This stay allows us to place part of her work within the context of French Orientalist painting of the interwar period.

Artist: Marie-Antoinette QUEROY (1881–1977)

Subject: Bouquet of sweet peas in a blue vase

School: French School – Orientalist painter

Period: circa 1920–1930

Technique: Oil on canvas

Total dimensions with frame: 42 × 32 cm

Signed lower right “M. Ant. Queroy”

Provenance: Artist’s estate. This work is part of a collection preserved in the family estate and dates from the period of his travels in Algeria in the 1920s. Six other paintings are available in our other listings.

Oval wooden frame with gilded stucco, decorated with palmettes and stylized foliage, Art Deco period.

Good condition; see photographs.