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This very luminous bouquet of flowers is signed C. Gontier, for Clément or Camille Gontier, between the two my heart balances, the signatures of the one and the other are very close, to believe that it is the same painter, and it is very possible that their works were confused and attributed to one or the other a little at random (at least for what is still life). They are contemporaries and they probably exhibited at the same time...One seems to have been born around 1840, the other one was born in 1876, they both exhibited at the Salons des Artistes Français, we don't know the date of death of Camille Gontier whereas Clément Gontier died in 1918, the latter seems to have known a greater notoriety, he was a pupil of Jean Paul Laurens then of Benjamin Constant, he came out second of the competition of painting for the price of Rome, he was awarded the price of the Academy Julian and a medal of third class in 1904. Their compositions are very similar and often highlight, in the center of the bouquet, one or two fleshy, white and bright flowers. A work by Pierre Camille Gontier is kept in the Saint Omer Museum and another in the Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle, England.
Oil on canvas signed on the lower left.
Dimensions frame 73 cm x 63 cm, frame 55 cm x 46 cm.
Ref: BWIH8EI4JR