Tree and House

Tree and House is a precious pencil study realized by the French painter Emile-Louis Minet . The state of preservation is excellent. The piece of paper comes from a sketchbook, and it presents some fringes on the higher margin.

Louis Minet was an important artist from Normandy. He lived in Rouen, where he studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. During his life, he achieved great success and won a mention of honor at the Salon of French Artists in 1882. In 1917, he was elected member of the Academy of Sciences and Fine Arts of Rouen and in 1905 curator of the Museum of Fine Arts of Rouen until 1922.

This artwork represents a big bare tree in the foreground near a path and a big house with a roof terrace behind it, typical of French countryside buildings. The artist was a realist painter, who paid much attention to air, light, and atmosphere. He drew inspiration from the landscapes and countryside of Normandy en plen air , as it probably occurred in this precise and dynamic drawing, typical of this artist’s production and of coeval painting.