Edouard (Léon) Cortès - Place de la Madeleine, Marché aux Fleurs - image-1

Lot 314 D

Edouard (Léon) Cortès - Place de la Madeleine, Marché aux Fleurs

Auction 1090 - overview Cologne
31.05.2017, 18:00 - Modern Art
Estimate: 25.000 € - 30.000 €
Result: 26.040 € (incl. premium)

Edouard (Léon) Cortès

Place de la Madeleine, Marché aux Fleurs
Circa 1967

Oil on canvas 64.8 x 54 cm Framed. Signed 'EDOUARD CORTES' in black lower right.

In this late work by Edouard Cortès, which features a “Belle Époque” figural staffage, the artist essentially cites himself. It deals with one of his best-known and most popular Parisian urban motifs, the flower market next to St Madeleine's, which he first depicted early on - only shortly after the turn of the century and before 1910, according to Nicole Verdier, the compiler of his catalogue raisonné. In the present variation the artist takes this subject up once again, as though reminiscing; the work is distinguished not only by its formidable dimensions, but primarily by this formalised memorial quality. Cortès was born into a family of Spanish painters in 1882. He died in his home town of Lagny-sur-Marne, at the age of 87, shortly after the creation of our painting.
The composition presents an accustomed detail of the scene, and the individual pictorial elements - certain motives, such as the horse-drawn cab, tram, advertising column and the woman with a hat and light fur stole in the foreground - form well-known stereotyped iconographical set pieces on this famous Parisian square, which is endowed with a peculiar grandeur through the columns of the classicising St Madeleine's. We experience an autumnal evening ambience that features clouds high in the sky and has been interpreted in a late Impressionist style. There is the play of the coloured light, which is intercepted and reflected by the depicted objects in diverse ways, and the shimmering of the damp pavement and the brownish fallen leaves, with the bright colours of the flower stands and posters in the middle ground strikingly set off against them.

Certificate

With a photo-certificate by Nicole Verdier, Paris, dated 26 April 2016 (certificate no. EC 160603/HT/LEM-C03)
The work will be included in the 3rd volume of the cat. rais. of paintings by Edouard Cortès, currently under preparation.
We would like to thank Nicole Verdier, Paris, for supplementary information.

Provenance

Edouard Cortès, Galerie F. Clair, Paris; Galerie Burlington, London (2002); Private possesion, Austria