Achille Bentos in fact was a pseudonym for Achille
de Maertelaere who was known for his house scenes.
As several members of his family lived in each others
neighborhood postmen more than often made mistakes
while delivering their post. Achille de Maertelaere
therefore used a friends name Bento to form his
pseudonym "Achille Bentos".We still have to
investigate wether if this is a genuine work by this
painter. We tend not to believe so. His subjects
mostly were quite different and with persons.
The light in this work was appealing though I have
to admit I wasn't aware of it at first. The stronger points
are the way the trees are represented. Besides that
the darker parts in the mountain on the right have
been done credible. Oil on board.
Dimensions: 30 / 40 cm.
Just recently a family member of Achille de Martelaere
wrote me an e-mail about this painting. He stated that
Bentos hardly ever painted landscapes and therefore
this one with a genuine signature on it is a special one.
He made a beautiful website from the works and
that was partly the reason we sold it to him.
Denis Pierre Bergeret (1844 - 1910)
A rather big flower still life that has some small damages
in the upper and lower right hand corner. Bergeret was one
of the most popular still life painters in France in the second
half of the 19th century. He is still remembered as his work
even can be admired in Musee d'Orsay in Paris. This work
has been made on cardboard. Dimensions: 53 / 78,5 cm.
His skills are becoming painstakingly clear once you
are looking at the pictures of some details: His play
with light and shadow, the fresh and already withered
flowers on the right and at the bottom are showing
his great skills.
The vase doesn't play a very important role in this painting
but a close inspection of that element and in fact all the others
learns us that he in fact has an impressionistic approach in
his use of the paint. The result however remains very realistic.
Not only Light and dark , also the use of his colors
is deserving the spectators attention. E.G. the color red.
By clicking on this picture that has fainted over time you are
able to see the name "Bergeret" . Remarkable as one must
realize that this painting has been sold as being anonymous.
We've fotoshopped this picture and that makes the signature
in fact very readable. The damage and the bad way someone
has painted over it will be repaired. At first a good reparation
of the lower right corner with the same cardboard. Then leveling
and finally painting that spot in the right color is a logical
follow up. Once repaired I will make another picture.
An invisible restauration is hardly possible as Denis Pierre
Bergeret often worked with multiple layers of different
colors and you have to be very experienced to get the
same result apart from the fact that modern paint reacts
in another way. This picture shows the difference in a
very exaggerated way. In reality a spectator will hardly
notice it..... This one went to another art lover.
Frits van den Berghe
Still not recognized being an authentic
painting by this master. But during some period
of his life he used a strange dried blood colour
in his paintings that appears to be present here as well.
We call this one: "Conversation"
Work on paper. Dimensions: 30 / 40 cm.
No comments:
Post a Comment