GROBON, Anthelme Eugène (1820-1878)

Tulipe plurifolia double. Roi de bleu

[circa 1870]. Watercolour and bodycolour on thin card, titled on verso, signed 'E. Grobon'. Sheet size: 11 x 8 1/16 inches. Louis XVI style gold leaf frame with French mat. 17 x 14 3/4 inches.

A very fine, sophisticated image of a small group of purple-flowering double tulips.

Recalling the work of the Grobon's illustrious predecessors, Pierre Joseph Redouté, Jean Louis Prevost and Gerrit van Spaendonck, the present image is one of elegant simplicity. Grobon, confident in his ability to capture the fleeting moment of perfection in nature, feels no need to resort to the artifice of an overcrowded or overcomplicated design. The beauty of the subject is enough. François Frédéric Grobon (1815-1901/1902) and Anthelme Eugène Grobon (1820-1878), brothers who both studied in Lyons, are recorded as having produced a number of very fine published collections of hand-coloured prints of flowers between about 1844 and 1850. They also published an excellent instruction manual for flower painters, Méthode Grobon frères, études progressives de Fleurs et de Fruits, depuis les premiers éléments jusqu' à la composition des groupes. (Paris, 1850) In addition to this published work, the artist of the present work, A. E. Grobon, is recorded as having exhibited at both the Lyons Salon (from 1838) and the Paris Salon (between 1852 and 1870). His elder brother exhibited in Paris between 1842 and 1862 and in Lyons from 1842 to 1880.

Item #6464

Price: $1,250.00