Antoine Gadan (1854-1934) - Orientalist - "the Fruit Basket" - Bône - Algeria

- The Fruit Basket - Oil painting on canvas by Mr. Antoine GADAN (born in Seurre in Côte d'or in 1854 and died in Bône, Annaba, Algeria in 1934) The Fruit Basket oil painting on frame, Grapes and pomegranate. signed lower left, undated. The dimensions of the canvas are: height 51 cm x Length 74 cm The frame is 10 cm wide by 7 cm deep. Additional information: On the back of the frame there is a label from the framer, "M. Fçois. CAMILLERI, Gilder on Wood, Frames, 6 rue Nve. St. Augustin - BÔNE "Bibliography Antoine Gadan arrived in Algiers at the age of 27 in 1881 and lived on a farm belonging to the Count of Sonis near Bône (Annaba). He painted rural subjects that earned him the nickname "painter of grasses". His painting is full of poetry and sincerity. Gadan is a glory of Bône, present at the Universal Exhibition of 1900, he receives the Vermeil medal from the hands of Rochegrosse. Many works are preserved in the Museums of Fine Arts of Algiers and Constantine. Antoine Gadan, born in Seurre in Côte d'Or, learned his trade as a painter in his native country, in a self-taught manner, and some early works representing the Burgundy countryside still bear witness to this, but it is in his adopted country, Algeria, that he developed his exceptional talent as a landscaper. A whole part of the Gadan family, of modest origins, his father was a cabaret owner, left for Algeria to seek a better life and the young painter, then aged twenty-seven, stayed in Marseille while waiting to embark, with his parents, his brother, his wife and his first son Charles. Two paintings presented in Paris in 1895, at the Salon des Artistes français, brought him to favourable attention: "The White River at El Kantara" and "Algerian Night". They were followed by "The Red River at El Kantara" at the Salon of 1896. Recognised from then on as a landscaper and decorator, Gadan was commissioned to paint the diorama intended to decorate the Algerian Pavilion at the Trocadéro, during the Universal Exhibition of 1900. He chose to illustrate "The Algerian Coast from Bône to Oran", a pretext to parade in a real pictorial journey the most beautiful sites of the Algerian shores. This immense diorama, which was exhibited in London and New York after Paris, was a great public success, while earning its author the praise of the jury, in particular that of the history painter Édouard Detaille and the landscaper Jules Breton, a member of the Academy of Fine Arts. Subsequently, Gadan was honored with an exhibition of fifteen paintings at the Constantine Museum in 1908, organized on the initiative of the curator M. Hinglais. That same year ended with a warm welcome at the Salon d'Automne in Algiers where the critic C. Monplessis praised "the intense poem of luminous life" in which "the amethyst pink fluidity through which (Gadan) shows us the Bônoise dune" unfolds. The bard of eastern Algeria was then at his peak, nicknamed the "glory of Bône". We do not know much more about the apparently peaceful and quiet existence of this artist whose works have their place among the best painters of Algeria. Museums: Algiers, Constantine, Paris (Porte Dorée and Quai Branly)…