Paintings, Drawings, Sculpture

Stanislas Lépine french , 1835 – 1892 . Country Road ( Route de Compagne )

c. 1876 – 80 Oil on canvas 12½ x 8 7 ⁄

8 inches ( 31 . 8 x 22 . 5 cm)

Signed lower left provenance Mme. Charbuis, Paris Galerie Odermatt-Cazeau, Paris Private collection Collection of Jeffrey Archer His sale, Christie’s South Kensington, June 28 , 2011 , lot 51 Acquired at the above literature Schmit, Robert, Stanislas Lepine, and Manuel Schmit. Stanislas Lepine, 1835–1892: Catalogue Raisonne De L’œuvre Peint . Paris: Editions Galerie Schmit, 1993 . no. 725 , illustrated p. 290 . A self-trained artist, Lépine made his debut at the Paris Salon in 1859 , and then apprenticed to the master J.B.C. Corot, identifying himself as his student in the 1866 Salon catalogue. Lépine was a quiet and modest man, who generally isolated himself from artistic circles, though he did enjoy a few friendships with painters such as Cals, Ribot, and Fantin- Latour, even making the acquaintance of Edouard Manet who painted a portrait of Lépine’s wife in 1878 . Lépine exhibited 37 works at the Paris Salon during his lifetime, usually a single work or sometimes a pair of paintings. Hardly noticed by the critics, and isolated from his contemporaries, it took him 25 years to