Benjamin Vautier (1829-1898)

"Picking Flowers with Mother"

Oil on canvas

65cm x 45 cm.

While Vautier was born and initially trained in Switzerland most of his paintings depict idyllic rural scenes in and around the Black Forest and Alsace-Lorraine. He was apprenticed to an enameller in Geneva, where he also took drawing lessons from Jules Hébert. He then spent the years 1850 to 1853 in Düsseldorf, where he studied under Carl Ferdinand Sohn and Rudolf Jordan. In 1857 he settled permanently in Düsseldorf. From here he travelled into the countryside to depict scenes of rural peasant life. He avoided describing its relentless toil or poverty but instead focused on its most romantic aspects, such as we see in this charming scene. The titles of other works encapsulate his specific interest in his subject, such as "Village Church with Congregation" of 1856 (Kunsthaus Heylshof, Worms); "Sewing Class", 1859 (Galerie Paffrath, Düsseldorf) or "Homecoming", 1881 (Wisconsin Art Museum, Milwaukee). His work is usually highly dramatic and though theatrical it is also naturalistic, having a strong sense of composition and generally painted with muted local colour.