Claudia Bret-Charbonnier

Available for sale from Big Sky Fine Art in the English county of Dorset, this original oil painting is by the French artist Claudia Bret-Charbonnier and dates from around 1920. <br> The painting is presented and supplied in a provincial 1960s wooden frame (which is shown in these photographs). The canvas is supported by its original provincial wooden framework from the 1920s, with cross braces but without the facility to tension the canvas. <br> The canvas and the painted surface have benefitted from cleaning and conservation, which was performed on our instruction, supervision and approval. <br> This antique painting is now in very good condition, defying its age. It is supplied ready to hang and display.<br> The painting is signed lower right.<br> <br> Acclaimed French artist Claudia Bret-Charbonnier was the daughter of Anne-Francoise Bourguyelle and Claude Charbonnier, a carpenter. She was born in Lyon in 1863 and married on August 17, 1886. In Lyon she studied under Jules Médard and André Perrachon. She then moved to Paris to study art and honed her skills under the likes of Ernest Quost, Gabriel Edouard and Pierre Bourgogne. <br> Bret-Charbonnier developed her artistic career during a period when women artists were increasingly gaining access to professional training and exhibition opportunities. Her work demonstrates a solid academic grounding in drawing and composition combined with a sensitive approach to natural light and landscape.<br> Claudia Bret-Charbonnier began exhibiting at the Salon of the Lyon Society of Fine Arts in 1885 and at the Salon d'Automne in 1889. She exhibited there for a remarkable 56 years, showing paintings and watercolors, primarily of flowers, as well as pastel portraits. She also regularly participated in exhibitions in several provincial salons, such as those in Roanne in 1890, Grenoble and Nîmes. She achieved considerable success in the later years of the nineteenth century, producing numerous paintings, often through state commissions. She was awarded a second-class medal at the Salon of Lyon in 1900 and a bronze medal in 1914. The Museum at Lyon holds an example of her work today. <br> <br> In her later years she focused particularly on landscapes and flowers. She taught many renown pupils in her own workshop including Gabrielle Millioud, Roger Montalembert de Cers and Victorine Bouvier. <br> <br> Bret-Charbonnier was a member of the Société des Artistes Français and the Union des Femmes Peintres. She represented Lyon painters at the National Agricultural and Horticultural Competition in 1907. She twice headed one of the most frequented and prestigious studios in Lyon.<br> Claudia Bret-Charbonnier continued painting well into the twentieth century and died in 1951. Today her paintings are appreciated for their gentle atmosphere and refined palette. Scenes of the Canal du Midi and similar waterways remain particularly sought after by collectors interested in historic views of rural France.<br> <br> © Big Sky Fine Art<br> <br> This atmospheric French landscape is an original oil on canvas by the noted French painter Claudia Bret-Charbonnier. The painting depicts a tranquil stretch of the historic Canal Du Midi, one of France’s most celebrated waterways, with a working barge moored along the towpath and loaded with barrels of wine ready for transport through the Languedoc countryside.<br> The composition captures the quiet poetry of rural France at sunset. Tall poplar trees line the canal bank, their graceful forms rising above the still water and casting soft reflections across the surface. A narrow towpath curves gently toward the barge, guiding the viewer’s eye to the centre of the scene where the vessel rests low in the water beneath its cargo of wine casks. The warm glow of the evening sky, soft hues of gold, pink and pale violet, illuminates the landscape and enhances the peaceful mood of the scene.<br> Painted in oil on canvas and signed by the artist in the lower right, this work is a fine example of early twentieth-century French landscape painting. Combining a romantic appreciation of nature with a subtle glimpse of regional commerce, the painting offers both aesthetic charm and historical character.