Félix Ziem - Marine - Oil On Panel - Studio Stamp - Venice

“Beautiful sky, polished and silent lagoons where I dreamed beauty”. 


Ziem didn't just dream beauty. He tirelessly represented it. Especially in Venice and Constantinople, he found a light quite different from that which bathed his early Barbizon canvases.

Considered an Orientalist and a precursor of Impressionism, Ziem left his mark on his time and on the generations of painters that followed him. Théophile Gautier and the critics of his time admired the fluidity of his style; and when Van Gogh arrived in Arles, he wrote to his brother Théo: “I'd like to be able to do the blues that Ziem does, which don't age like the others...”.

In 1910, Félix Ziem was the first living painter to enter the Louvre Museum. His works hang in numerous museums (Paris, Musée d'Orsay and Petit Palais, Musées des Beaux Arts de Toulon, Marseille, Beaune, etc.).

Our painting bears the studio mark affixed at the artist's death by his widow in 1912 (Lugt 3708), as well as the inventory number 681. 

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