Environs de Viriuex (Ain), 1895 by Adolphe Appian (French, 1818 - 1898)
Adolphe Appian
French, 1818 - 1898

Environs de Viriuex (Ain)

1895
Oil on canvas
23 1/2 x 39 5/8 inches (59.69 x 100.65 centimeters)
Framed: 31 x 46 1/2 inches (78.74 x 118.11 centimeters)

Signed and dated lower left: Appian 1895

SOLD

Possibly “Environs de Viriuex (Ain),” exhibited at Salon of Lyon, 1895 (acquired by Ch. Vouga.)

Adolphe Appian (French, 1818 - 1898)

Appian was among the group of landscapists that formed around Corot and Daubigny during the 1850s and carried their tradition of plein air painting to the end of the 19th century. Appian was born in Lyon, where he began his artistic studies at the age of 15 at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Lyon. He began his career creating silk designs?Lyon was, of course, the center of silk production in France?and he opened his own silk design practice in 1842.

It was around this time that Appian met Auguste Ravier, who was also from Lyon, and by 1848 the two landscapists were painting together. By 1852, the pair was painting in the company of Corot and Daubigny at Barbizon. This period presented a significant turning point in Appian?s career: from 1853 Appian exhibited regularly at the Lyon and Paris Salons and began to live solely from his art. Appian returned to the forest of Fontainebleau several times over the next decade in 1854, 1855, 1856 and he painted in the company of Daubigny in 1857 at Marlotte and in 1859 at Optevoz. Appian and Daubigny maintained a close relationship and from 1859 Appian identified himself as a student of Daubigny and Corot at the annual Salon.

Although his time in Fontainebleau proved seminal in his career, Appian is best known for his images depicting the regions around his of his native Lyon?Ain, Auvergne, Savoy and the Pyrenees. He returned to this area in 1862 and from the 1870s painted this southern region with occasional trips to paint along the Mediterranean coast at Collioure, the Martigues, Villefranche, Monaco and Menton.

Like his contemporary Henri Harpignies (1819-1916), Appian was interested in a broad range of media, and was as active producing finished works in charcoal and etching as he was in painting. He joined the Société des Aquafortistes in 1865, and his etchings and works in charcoal are as prevalent in museum collections as are his paintings.

Selected Museum Collections:
Musée du Louvre, Paris; Musée Calvet, Avignon; Brooklyn Museum; Musée de Brou, Bourg-en-Bresse; Dahesh Museum of Art, NY; Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, MA; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Chambéry; Art Institute of Chicago; Cleveland Museum of Art; Dallas Museum of Art; Préfecture de l?Isère, Grenoble; Indianapolis Art Museum; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon; Musée des Ursulines, Mâcon; Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, NH; Musée Cantini, Marseilles; Minneapolis Institute of Art; Musée Fabre, Montpellier; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes; Pomona College Museum of Art, Claremont, CA; Dahesh Museum of Art, New York; Musée Crozatier, Le Puy-en-Velay; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen; Musée Greuze, Tournus; Victoria Art Gallery, Bath, UK; Wichita Art Museum

Bibliography:
Adolphe Appian (1818-1898), peintre et graveur de l?ecole Lyonnaise. Ex. Cat., Bourg-en-Bresse, Musee de Brou, 1997.
Adolphe Appian: etchings and lithographs from the G. and A. Burton collection. Ex. Cat., Cambridge: Fitzwilliam Museum, 1994.
Dickinson Michaux, Lisa with Gabriel P. Weisberg, Expanding the Boundaries: Selected drawings from the Yvonne and Gabriel P. Weisberg Collection. Minneapolis, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 2008.
Harambourg, Lydia, Dictionnaire des peintres paysagistes français au XIXe siècle, Neuchâtel, Editions Ides et Calendes, 1985.

Additional views

  • Environs de Viriuex (Ain), 1895 by Adolphe Appian (French, 1818 - 1898)

Request more information

  • *
  • *

News on the artist

Join Mailing List

  • *
  • *