Madame Luce (Portrait d'Ambroisine)

Hand signed by the artist "Luce" in oil paint, lower right. In very good condition. Catalogue reference: Bazetoux Vol. III, 400

Provenance: Artist's studio. From the former collection of Frédéric Luce. Purchased at Appay-Besch, Cannes, July 18, 2000.

Maximilien Luce was born in 1858 to a working-class Parisian family. He went on to become one of the founders of Neo-Impressionism along with Pissarro, Seurat and Signac. The “Neos” sought to improve upon the Impressionist style with a scientific method of painting called Pointillism.
Around 1900, Luce moved away from the pointillist technique of painting small dots of pure color, in favor of mixed colors and more expressive strokes. Luce distinguished himself from his colleagues with a less rigid technique but also by his choice of subject matter, painting social realist scenes of workers and fishermen, peaceful scenes of leisure and picturesque landscapes and seascapes.

Luce’s works are in many internationally renowned museums such as, the Musée D’Orsay in Paris, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, N.Y., the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, and the Legion of Honor museum in San Francisco, California.