Luc Raphaël Ponson (1835-1904) Characters By The Sea

Very pretty gouache on paper framed under glass by the Provençal master Raphaël Ponson. The work represents characters near their boat pulled on the ground, certainly in the Var where the artist was from. The work, which must be a youth work, is to be compared to certain paintings by Vincent Courdouan, the leader of the Var school who influenced Raphaël Ponson. It is signed and dedicated at the bottom right, and frame size included 46 cm by 68 cm and 21.5 cm by 42.5 at sight. Renowned for his landscapes of the Provençal coast, Raphaël Ponson is the son of a theater decorator who teaches him the basics of painting. Then he follows the lessons of the practical drawing school of Marseille where he is a pupil of Emile Loubon, who teaches him to paint landscapes in the respect of the local tone. He went to Paris in 1855 and 1856, then to Italy where he completed his training. He then settled permanently in Marseille. He started at the Salon de Marseille in 1852, and at the Salon de Paris in 1861 with La Châtaigneraie near Chevreuse and Le Château d'If in the harbor of Marseille. Works In 1863, he decorated the gallery of private apartments in the new prefecture of Marseille. For the decoration of the rooms on the first floor of the Natural History Museum of the Palais Longchamp, Henri-Jacques Espérandieu called upon Raphaël Ponson whose flexible and brilliant talent would be perfectly suited to the execution of this work according to the words of the architect during the presentation of the letter of submission to the municipal council 1. In 1867, he decorated the three rooms on the first floor where he painted spectacular natural sites: Niagara Falls, sea of ice, Amazon rainforest and the basalt caves of Fingal in one of the Hebrides Islands. The most renowned room is that of Provence, where Ponson represents different landscapes for each of the small regions of Provence: Cork oaks, chestnut and arbutus trees for the Var, olive and oleander trees for the Bouches-du-Rhône, and mulberries, almond trees and melons for Vaucluse2. He also decorates the Rigaud3 café and the Plauchut pastry shop at the top of the Canebière in Marseille. He specializes in representing the beaches, creeks and seashores around Marseille. To distinguish himself from his younger brother, Étienne Aimé Ponson, painter of still lifes, he added his first name to his patronymic. Present in many regional exhibitions, he won several awards. Works in the Aix-en-Provence public collections, Musée Granet: Golfe de Bandol. Avignon, Calvet museum: L'Anse de la Couronne near Martigues. Béziers, Museum of Fine Arts: Calanque de Port Pin near Cassis; Evening in the Gulf of Bandol. Carcassonne, Museum of Fine Arts: Seaside in Bandol. Cassis, Mediterranean municipal museum: Italian Brick in the port of Cassis. Digne-les-Bains, Gassendi museum: La Calanque de Sormiou. Dijon, Museum of Fine Arts: The Château d'If: morning effect 5. Hyères: Coastline in Hyères. Rue de la République, Marseille, prefecture hotel of Bouches-du-Rhône. Marseille: Museum of Fine Arts: Morning at Sausset; Sormiou ratings; Marine. Musée de la Marine: Coal ships in the national basin, 1890. Bouches-du-Rhône prefecture hotel, private apartments: four circular paintings, commissioned on May 23, 1866 by the Prefect Charlemagne of Maupas to decorate a gallery of his apartments, representing districts of Marseille: Le Palais Longchamp; The Rue de la République; Parc Borély; The Pharo. Narbonne, Museum of Art and History: View of Endoume; Nest of gulls at the calanque of Port-Miou. Toulon, art museum: Undergrowth in Sainte-Marguerite. Tours, Museum of Fine Arts: Rochers à Cassis.