James Desvarreux-Larpenteur, Heather in Bloom, Signed Oil on Canvas, Late 19th Century, Ornate Swept Frame

The heather is rose and violet across two thirds of the canvas, and nothing in the picture casts a shadow. The light is flat and diffuse, and colour does the work that contrast usually does.

Oil on canvas, 10 1/2 x 13 1/2 inches (27 x 34 cm), 16 x 19 inches (41 x 48 cm) framed. Signed J. Desvarreux lower right. French, circa 1890 to 1900, in an ornate swept frame.

A bank of flowering heather rises from the lower left to a low crest at the right, broken by clumps of dark green gorse and a few white sprays. Beyond it a pale field runs flat to a line of trees, with the red roof of a farm just visible among them, and the sky above is worked in thin blue and cream. The near heather and the far heather differ only in temperature, never in value, which is what keeps the ground flat and the light even.

The frame is an ornate swept moulding with scrolls and shell ornament, in a cream finish over a warm ground, with a gilt inner fillet.

Good original condition, unlined and stable on its stretcher, with a light surface soiling normal to its age.