Codie Lyons
Associate Specialist
Property from a prominent St. Louis Collection
Lot 365
JAN FRANS VERHAS(BELGIAN, 1834-1896)Minor catastrophe 33 1/2 x 22 3/4in (85.1 x 57.8cm)
12 November 2020, 10:00 PST
Los AngelesSold for US$71,562.50 inc. premium
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JAN FRANS VERHAS (BELGIAN, 1834-1896)
Minor catastrophe
signed 'Jan Verhas' (on the backrest center right)
oil on panel
33 1/2 x 22 3/4in (85.1 x 57.8cm)
signed 'Jan Verhas' (on the backrest center right)
oil on panel
33 1/2 x 22 3/4in (85.1 x 57.8cm)
Footnotes
Provenance
Benjamin F. Edwards III, St. Louis,
Thence by descent to the present owner.
Jan Frans Verhas, a Belgian painter, received his initial training from his father, Emmanuel Verhas, an artist, teacher, and director at the local Academy and younger brother of Franz Verhas, a successful artist in his own right. Verhas studied initially at the Academy of Fine Arts in his hometown Dendermonde and from 1853 onwards at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Antwerp. Verhas is most known for his portraits and genre scenes of women and children set in luxurious bourgeois homes. He was an important representative of the emerging Realist movement in Belgium of the day. He was also influenced by his fellow student and subsequent lifelong friend, Lawrence Alma-Tadema.
In this Realist approach to rendering scenes of everyday contemporary life, the artist was known for incorporating a humoristic touch. His favorite subjects were children engaged in some innocent activity or mischief, which is evident and cleverly portrayed in the present work Minor catastrophe. Here the lovely young girl's penitent expression is one of undoubted guilt as she has overturned the entryway's blue and white porcelain gueridon with the calling cards from the receptacle now strewn across the carpet, a result of her badminton play. She remains frozen with the racquet in hand as the shuttlecock lies at her feet. The broken porcelain fragments on the carpeted floor serve as further evidence of the catastrophe. The child's natural expression gives the scene the feeling of a casual recording of the mishap. The artist's warm color palette, decorative background, opulent European furniture and drapery, exotic carpet, and delicate lace embellishments on the clothes of the diminutive culprit accentuate the bourgeois atmosphere. The whole composition is executed in a naturalistic style with attention to the rendering of the different materials and textures for which the artist was well recognized and celebrated.
