Monte Carlo – Auguste Numans

Auguste Numans (1823-1883) Monte Carlo

Oil on canvas signed: A. Numans lower right
Dimensions: H: 61 cm x W: 55 cm without frame – H: 69.5 cm x W: 84.5 cm 

The work:
This painting is located on the Promenade in front of the Salle Garnier in Monaco Built as its name suggests by the famous architect four years after the construction of the Paris Opera, the building imposes its own silhouette, with its dome and two bell towers on the facade. Sarah Bernhardt was its first star: she recited a poem there, in the middle of immense palms on January 25, 1879.

The artist:
Born in Brussels, is a Belgian painter, watercolourist, etcher and engraver. Auguste Numans was a student at the Royal School of Engraving in Brussels, where he learned metal engraving, then at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels, where he was trained in engraving by Luigi Calamatta (1843-1846) and by Paul Lauters. At the age of 20, he began to participate assiduously, for almost 60 years, in the Belgian triennial exhibitions at the Brussels Salon of 1842. Residing occasionally in Paris in 1849, he was then also present at the Paris Salons of 1853 and 1855. He reproduced in engravings the paintings of contemporary Belgian artists, such as Jean-François Portaels, Paul Lauters, Emmanuel Noterman, Willem Roelofs and François-Antoine Bossuet, as well as old masters such as Jacob van Ruisdael. As an illustrator, he collaborated on the art magazine Vlaamsche School in the 1870s and 1880s. When he participated in the exhibition of the society of the Union of Artists of Liège in 1872, he was awarded a gold medal for the etchings he presented. Auguste Numans was a member of the short-lived Circle of Belgian Watercolourists and Etchers (1883-1884).

Museum collections:
The British Museum holds La Campine, an engraving by Auguste Numans (no. 1888,0612.1026)