Claude Firmin (1864-1944) The Three Comtadines

A mastery of light and a skillfully used material for this magnificent work by the Avignon master Claude Firmin; The work is presented in a Louis XIV type frame which measures 60 cm by 76 cm and 38 cm by 55 cm for the canvas alone. It represents three comtadines in a Provençal interior. In good condition, only a few cracks from use, unimportant and normal for a work of this period, it is signed and dated 1907 lower right. Claude Firmin, known as "the Goy" (the lame in Provençal), painted many frescoes for the town hall of Avignon. he exhibited at the Salon des artistes français from 1889 to 1922; he obtained an honorable mention there in 1902 for Le Sentier des saules en Provence and Mon Doreur. A member of the group of thirteen chaired by Clément Brun, he is considered a Provençal master of painting. He became a professor (1922), then director (1937-1941) of the School of Fine Arts in Avignon. He was named Chevalier of the Legion of Honor on January 29, 1937. The grandparents of the poet Henri Rode, in the kitchen of their farm in Cairanne, were painted by Firmin in 1902. Works in the public collections Avignon musée Calvet : Le Brocanteur, or Interior of a Repairer of Works of Art, 1896, oil on canvas, 108 × 128 cm; Rhône sand pits in Villeneuve-les-Avignon, 1905, oil on canvas, 162 × 222 cm; Portrait of Noël Biret in his studio, oil on canvas, 42 × 33.5 cm Louis Vouland Museum La Régalade, 1910, oil on canvas; Farm Interior, 1903, oil on canvas; The Departure, 1914, oil on canvas, 46 × 38 cm.