Jean-Baptiste Pillement: Poetry and a Change of Scene

With an engraved signature and a label with the date "1787", this bucolic canvas illustrates the talent of Jean-Baptiste Pillement (1728-1808). It shows a Paysage au pont sur la rivière traversant une vallée avec villageois et leurs bêtes (Landscape with Bridge on a River in a Valley, with Villagers and their Animals: 48.5 x 63.5 cm/19 x 25 in, see photo) in the purest style of this exponent of panoramic Mediterranean scenes, which he painted from life during frequent journeys to Italy and Portugal. And his landscapes are still highly popular: this one achieved €43,750 after a high estimate of €12,000.

Later, another artist from Lyon expressed his passion for open-air painting using an avant-garde technique: François-Auguste Ravier (1814-1895). This Impressionist before his time provided a choice, at €11,875, between two characteristic works: a watercolor on paper entitled Ciel rouge et jaune sur l'étang (Red and Yellow Sky Over Pond: 17.5 x 22.5 cm/6.9 x 8.9 in. at sight), and an oil on panel, Coucher de soleil sur l'étang (Sunset Over a Pond:19 x 25 cm/7.5 x 9.8 in).

Next came a younger artist with a quieter style: Jean-Baptiste Olive (1848-1936). Here, his Bateaux à marée basse, en Normandie (Boats at Low Tide, Normandy), a painting from c. 1878 (46 x 65 cm/18.1 x 25.6 in), fetched €7,375. The 20th-century section included several still lifes by Marcel Dyf, like the 1976 Bouquet au pichet florentin (Flowers in a Florentine Jug: 55 x 46 cm/21.7 x 18.1 in), which fetched €7,875.