THE UNESCO WORKS OF ART COLLECTION
Alphonso Adolfo Feragutti VISCONTI (1850-1924)
France
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Alphonso Adolfo Feragutti VISCONTI (1850-1924)
COMPOSITION WITH FLOWERS
Oil painting on panel, signed bottom left
152
x 114
cm
Date of entry at UNESCO
Artwork included in the global donation made to UNESCO of the Château Bois du Rocher (France) by the Aschberg family in 1956, and entered in the Collection following the auction held in 1993.
Country of origin
France
Donating country
France |
© All rights reserved © Photo : UNESCO/R.Fayad |
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| Biografia y replanteamiento |
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This work depicts a bouquet of flowers whose scattered stems are more or less held in a vase which is barely visible under the profusion of flowers. Interestingly, the artist has here represented an abundance of similar flowers, without diversifying the floral motifs, unlike the numerous Northern representations from the Golden Age. The bouquet in Visconti’s painting is almost exclusively made up of what seems to be peonies. During the nineteenth century there was an abundance of flower painters, to the point that B. Elliot analyzes this art under the evocative title "The language of flowers in the nineteenth century" (in “The Floral Empire”, dir. Sabine van Sprang). Among many artists of this century to have contributed to the development of floral art, we can mention: Pierre-Auguste Renoir with his work “Gladiolas”, an oil on canvas from 1885 conserved in the Musée d'Orsay; Eugène Delacroix with “Bouquet”, an oil on canvas from 1848, today at the Museum of Fine Arts in Lille (France), and his yet more spectacular “Flowers Bouquet”, an oil on paper from approximately 1848 conserved in Paris, in the Graphic Arts Department of the Louvre Museum; and Gustave Courbet with his work “Le Treillis”, an oil on canvas from 1862, found at the Museum of Art of Toledo (Spain). This work coming from the Aschberg donation hence reveals the popularity of floral art during the nineteenth century, a notoriety which seems to have originated in the School of the Salon of Flowers in Lyons (France). The popularity of this theme, as is illustrated by “Composition with flowers”, should also be carefully considered from written sources, which, as of the 1850s, multiplied and inspired the artists. |
| Artist Biography |
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Adolfo Alphonso Feragutti Visconti (1850-1924), Italian painter and pastellist, naturalized as French, performed essentially portraits, landscapes, still lifes and flowers paintings. He was active from 1880 to the first quarter of the twentieth century. This artist participated in 1889 on the occasion of the Salon of French Artists at the Universal Exhibition. He was appointed secretary of the Salon in 1892 and he received the Legion of Honour in 1938. |
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