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French Romanticism Paintings

About this collection

French Romanticism is the art of passion and imagination that swept France in the early 19th century, setting strong colour, wild nature and the drama of a single moment against the cold order of Neoclassicism.

Feeling came first. Romantic painters turned to tigers in open landscapes, hunters at the edge of the wood and scenes lit by storm or moonlight, painted in oil with a freedom the academies had not allowed.

A gentleman with his gun and dog in a landscape, signed and dated 1839 by Charles Suan, oil on canvas in a period gilt frame

Charles Suan (1810-1879)

Gentleman with Gun and Dog, 1839
$4,900Signed
19th century French oil study of a fire by the coast with ships, oil on canvas in gilt frame

French School, 19th century

Fire by the Coast, 1800s
$5,600
Signed 1839 French portrait of a young hunter standing with his gun and his pointing dog, oil on canvas in a period gilt frame

Charles Suan (1810-1879)

The Hunter and His Dog, 1839
$4,900Signed
Two tigers resting before a dark rock at dusk, mid 19th century French oil on canvas in a gilt frame

French School, mid-19th century

Two Tigers in a Landscape, 1800s
$12,000

Guides · before you buy

How to Read Signatures and Inscriptions on Antique PaintingsA signature is a clue, not a verdict.Read the guideRelined, Restored, Craquelure, Understanding ConditionCraquelure is not damage and relined is not a defect.Read the guide

GalerieClub Fine Art

1,100+

paintings sold since 2017

Poppy Fields, late 1800sSold Poppy Fields, late 1800s Hagar and Ishmael, 1700sSold Hagar and Ishmael, 1700s Penitent Magdalene, 1600sSold Penitent Magdalene, 1600s

Our promise

  • Every painting photographed front and back
  • The frame you see is the frame that ships
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New paintings, by email

A note when new paintings come in. Nothing else.

Elsewhere in the gallery

French Romanticism paintings for sale at GalerieClub

Romanticism was a movement, not a mood. In the 1820s French painters broke with the smooth, balanced pictures of the Neoclassical studio and looked for colour, movement and emotion instead, and the 19th century Romanticism paintings in this collection belong to that break.

  • The tiger became a Romantic subject. Painters studied big cats in the menageries and zoological gardens of Paris and set them loose on canvas in open, stormy landscapes, as symbols of a nature no one could tame. A 19th century tiger oil painting shows the animal as the Romantics saw it, powerful, alert and alone. More animal subjects hang in our collection of antique animal paintings.

  • The hunt suited the Romantic eye. A gentleman standing with his gun and his dog in a landscape joins portrait, animal and nature in a single picture, and in the 1830s such scenes recorded the pleasures of country life as well as the sitter's face. An antique hunter with dog oil painting of this period keeps the sitter in a wide setting, with the dog painted as carefully as the man.

  • Colour did the work that drawing had done before. Romantic painters laid their paint more freely, let the brush show and built their light from warm and cool contrasts, and many signed and dated their canvases. A French Romantic school painting is described here by the school and the decade where no signature supports a name, as our guide to reading an attribution explains.