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Lot 116: Louis Welden Hawkins (French, 1849-1910) Readers

Est: £6,000 GBP - £8,000 GBP
BonhamsLondon, United KingdomSeptember 27, 2017

Item Overview

Description

Louis Welden Hawkins (French, 1849-1910) Readers
Readers
signed 'LOUIS WELDEN HAWKINS' (lower left); dated '1898' (lower right)
watercolour heightened with bodycolour over traces of pencil
43.5 x 36cm (17 1/8 x 14 3/16in).

Footnotes

  • Louis Welden Hawkins was born in Germany in 1849; his mother was an Austrian Baroness and his father was an English naval officer. Hawkins attended the Académie Julian in Paris, where he studied under William Adolphe Bouguereau and Jules Lefebvre. He also attended the Académie des Beaux-Arts receiving tutoring from Gustave Boulanger. He participated in many exhibitions in Paris, Brussels and London, and his public debut at the Salon des Artistes Francais in 1881 won him a third-class medal and saw his painting Les orphelins purchased by the state. Hawkins later received French citizenship and remained in France until his death.

    In the late 1880s, Hawkins became focused on symbolism, influenced by artists such as Eugène Carrière and Pierre Puvis de Chavannes. He produced mystical and dreamy portraits, moving away from his earlier interest in rustic, rural scenes. Towards the end of his life, however, regular trips to Brittany meant another variation in his choice of subject matter: he began to depict peasants bathed in bright sunlight, as in the present lot. Executed in 1898, vibrant colours fills the pictorial space, as two Breton girls gaze inward at the book they are reading.

    A lithographic print of the present lot was published by L'Estampe Moderne, F. Champenios, Vol. I in Paris.

Artist or Maker

Auction Details

19th Century European, Victorian & British Impressionist Art

by
Bonhams
September 27, 2017, 02:00 PM BST

101 New Bond Street, London, LDN, W1S 1SR, UK