Henri Harpignies (1819-1916) A Landscape In Winter, 1888, Signed Watercolor

Henri Harpignies (1819-1916) 
A Landscape in winter, 1888
Signed and dated "88" lower left 
Watercolor on paper 
19 x 27 cm
Framed : 33.5 x 43 cm
In good and fresh condition, slighlty undulating

Although it is always difficult to situate a landscape without precise indications, the emphasis is on the background, where we can make out snow-capped mountains and, above all, a small village. We know that Harpignies painted the south of France, Menton in particular, and we imagine ourselves in the hinterland of this region.
It is above all the artist's talent to arrange these different planes and take us through this landscape, to feel the melancholy of a landscape in winter, but also its great beauty.
The combination of cold colours is particularly subtle and seductive. 

Henri Harpignies , born in Valenciennes on June 28 , 1819 and died in Saint-Privé (Yonne) on August 28 , 1916, is a landscape painter  watercolourist and engraver, member of the School of Barbizon .
During his long career, Henri Harpignies painted a large number of works in Hérisson in Bourbonnais , as well as in Nivernais and Auvergne . He made decorative works for the Paris Opera , including the panel of Val d'Égrie , which he exhibited at the Salon in 1870.
He painted the stained glass windows of the Trousse-Barrière castle in Briare in 1895.

Anatole France described him as "The  Michelangelo of trees and peaceful countryside."

Works by Harpignies are in Philbrook Museum of Art (Railway Bridge on the Briare), Washington, National Gallery of Art (Landscape in Auvergne), Museum of Fine Arts Lille and National Museum of Fine Arts of Quebec collections.