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The artist, title and date of the work must be listed anywhere the image is reproduced:
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes
Winter (L'Hiver) 1896
oil on canvas
96.2 × 147.2 cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Felton Bequest, 1910
Photo: National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
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Winter
(L'Hiver)
1896
Medium
oil on canvas
Measurements
96.2 × 147.2 cm
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Felton Bequest, 1910
Gallery location
19th Century European Paintings Gallery
Level 2, NGV International
About this work
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, a celebrated painter of allegorical schemes, was asked in 1884 to create a decorative cycle of two friezes representing summer and winter for the new Hôtel-de-Ville (Town Hall) of Paris, recently built to replace the building burned down by Paris communards in 1871. Twelve years later Puvis painted this smaller version of Winter for a private collector, Prince Alexandre de Wagram. The radical simplification of his forms and tendency to a flat decorative and non-narrative style have caused Puvis to be claimed by some as a proto- abstract painter and by others as a Symbolist.
Artwork Details
Inscription
inscribed in grey paint l.r.: P. Puvis de Chavannes / 96
Accession Number
487-2
Department
International Painting
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of Digitisation Champion Dame Carol Colburn-Grigor CBE through Metal Manufactures Limited
Subjects (general)
Human Figures Labour, Industry and Machinery Landscapes
Subjects (specific)
felling (activity) labour men (male humans) seasons snow (precipitation) winter women (female humans)
Provenance
Probably commissioned by the Louis Philippe Marie Alexandre Berthier, 3rd Prince de Wagraam (1836–1911), Paris; his collection, 1896–1910; from whom purchased, through the Prince's agent, M. Barbazanges, on the advice of Léonce Bénédite and Frank Gibson, for the Felton Bequest, 1910.
Exhibited: Narratives, Nudes and Landscapes: French 19th-century Art, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1995; The 1890s, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, and Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 1996-97; European Masterpieces: Six Centuries of Paintings from the National Gallery of Victoria, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne touring to Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati 27 October 2000–14 January 2001, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, 18 March – 26 May 2001, Denver Art Museum, Denver, 23 June – 9 September 2001, Portland Art Museum October 2001–6 January 2002, cat. no. 78