Paul Bistagne (1850-1886) Fishermen By The Sea

A romantic light for this seaside animated by fishermen by the Marseille artist Paul Bistagne (1850-1886). The work is framed in a modern black frame (but which can be changed) which measures 49 cm by 64 cm and 34 cm by 49 cm without the frame. It is made in oil on canvas mounted on a wooden panel, signed and dated 76 lower right.

Marine painter, admirer of Ziem, an artist who is too little known who has worked with François Barry. He entered the Beaux Arts in Marseille at the age of 18, he met Barry there, whom he found in Paris where he was an official character of the Second Empire, official painter of the Navy.
Did Bistagne participate in Barry's last oriental cruises? We don't know.
Bistagne is in any case documented by the catalog of the Salon of 1875 and an 1878 painting "Le Port Oriental". Returning to Marseille at an uncertain date, he moved into a studio where he painted Provençal seascapes, some landscapes, views of Venice and the Bosphorus, which he animated with characters. His know-how is then closer to Félix Ziem than to that of François Barry. His young death does not allow us to speculate on what his maturity would have been, because we can only observe a few works. A "post mortem" consecration came to him with the Colonial Exhibition of 1906 where he was exhibited. At the Toulon Museum "Boats on land and fishermen (1885).