PIERRE EUGENE MONTEZIN ~ L’entree du Grand Canal, Venice

This celebrated artist was born in Paris on the 16th October in 1874 and died July 1946. Much admired for his wonderful renditions of the French countryside, he specialised in river scenes on the Seine and also Dreux and Moret. Greatly influenced by Claude Monet, Montezin’s palate clearly shows the influence of the great master. He received both encouragement and tutelage from Ernest Quost (1844-1931) and in 1893 he first exhibited at the Paris Salon.

He received numerous awards including a second and third class medal in 1907 and 1910 and Le Prix de Rosa Bonheur in 1920. He was a member of the Committee and Jury of Artistes Franchaise. He was also a member of the Academie des Beaux- Art, and awarded the prestigious Legion d’honneur in 1923.

This superb example is certainly a true representation of the best of Montezin’s important work and an illustration of some of the essential aims of Impressionism. His immense facility in presenting the luminosity of the water in a few sketchy but magically suggestive touches draw the viewer into the painting. There is a freshness in his work which is conveyed in a way which is stimulating to the extreme-carefully considered graduations of colour and the surety of hand of a master draughtsman. This example of Montezin’s work depicts the entrance of the Grand Canal in Venice with the Santa Maria della Salute captured on the left.

Examples of his work may be seen at various museums including ín Paris, at the Musee dÁrt Moderne, Mannheim and Normandy at the Petit Palais. This painting was exhibited at the Hommage a Montezin, Galerie Jean de Ruaz, Paris, 1972, no. 26.32, including other Paris exhibitions.

This painting is presented in its original period frame and is signed by the artist.