ALBERT LEBOURG (1849-1928) Lot n° 13

Windmills on the road from Rotterdam to Overschie, sunset effect Oil on canvas Signed and dated "1896" lower left Oil on canvas, signed and dated "1896" lower left 38,5 x 61,5 cm - 15 1/8 x 24 1/4 in. Mr François Lespinasse has confirmed the authenticity of this work PROVENANCE Delville Collection Sale, Kunsthaus Lempertz, Cologne, 1 June 2001, lot 857 Private collection, The Netherlands (acquired during the previous sale) BIBLIOGRAPHY Léonce Bénédite, Albert Lebourg, Éditions des Galeries Georges Petit, Paris: 1923, n° 300 (reproduced in black and white) and pp. 315 and 407 (mentioned) EXHIBITION Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, Exhibition Albert Lebourg, January 12-31, 1918, n°128 "After having done the Orient with serious qualities, which however did not put him in relief from the start, Mr. Lebourg turned to a different picturesque, which is much more in keeping with his temperament. There are mills rising from green bushes, above rivers where shimmering reflections are maintained; canals where the heavy barges, held by their moorings, seem numb in the descending evening; corners of the sea over which the sun, hooded with clouds, makes lazy climbs, and villages, and towns, and winter and spring hours, and silent snows, and foliage where pecking birds must nest; an enormous variety of subjects, in which the artist asserts himself as an impressionist with a strangely subtle vision and a deliberately bold brush. In the already considerable work of his second style, the first quality for which he must be praised is to have understood the picturesque to which he was going to ask for an object of interpretation; he grasped the special atmosphere of the northern countries, the misty transparencies which, in its maximum brilliance, borrow I don't know what melancholy full of contemplation. [...] There is in this painter, a sweet seduction whose effort is not felt, however laborious and patient this effort may be. Lebourg is one of those whose originality marks a school: he is himself and his work is a work." Léon Roger-Milès, "Albert Lebourg", in cat. sale Collection E[ugène] Blot, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 9 and 10 May 1900, pp. 69-70