Charles-joseph Kuwasseg (1802-1877) The Hillsides Of The Seine In Normandy?

Charles-Joseph KUWASSEG
(Trieste, 1802 – Nanterre, 1877)
The hills of the Seine (Normandy?)
Oil on canvas
H. 81 cm; L. 120 cm
Signed lower left, with traces of date
Mid-19th century

Less known than his son Charles-Euphrasie (1833-1904), to whom some of his paintings are sometimes wrongly attributed, Charles-Joseph Kuwasseg is a landscaper Austrian who came to settle in France in 1830. From 1835 to his death, he exhibited at the Paris Salon, where Louis-Philippe and Napoleon III bought works from him. His paintings have a romantic dimension and often offer a rather grandiose vision of nature, which can bring them closer to Alexandre Calame for example, especially in mountainous subjects. A traveling artist, Kuwasseg represented South America (which he visited at the end of the 1820s with his patron Count Schomberg), Switzerland, Austria, Great Britain, Provence, Savoy and Normandy. It is also very likely that the site of our large painting corresponds to one of the bends of the Seine in Normandy, even if we have not been able to find a strictly identical topography. The most likely hypothesis would be a view towards the upstream of the river, taken from the Sainte-Catherine coast just upstream of Rouen. Our artist also exhibits a View taken around Rouen at the Salon of 1848. Alongside the traditional activity of sheep breeding, we can see factories on the banks of the river evoking the emerging industrial revolution, as well as the smoke of 'a steamboat.