Large oil on canvas painting by Albert Bettannier (1851-1932), French painter awarded the Legion of Honour for his work as a painter in 1908. His works are exhibited in the world's major museums: 'La Tache noire' (The Black Stain) at the Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin, 1887; 'Le désespoir' (Despair) at the Musée de l'Ermitage, Saint-Pétersbourg, 1893.
Large canvas worthy of a museum in terms of pictorial quality and size. The painting enormous in size is entitled 'La Departure' and deals with the theme of the departure of a peasant's son for war.
In the central foreground is the heart-rending embrace of a mother to her son, who has to board the buggy in the background on the right, which will take him to an uncertain fate. Also in the foreground on the left is the father who, with one of his hands, marked by peasant fatigue, covers his face so as not to show his fear for the boy's fate. In the background is the endless French countryside as the sun sets, giving the sky a rosy hue. The silent sadness and emptiness that this son will leave to his family is rendered by the static nature of the depiction, almost as if time had stopped in the painted moment, in all its drama of that long and heartbreaking farewell. The work is signed and dated 1888 in the bottom right-hand corner. The painting has undergone restoration, the canvas has been lined to ensure its stability considering its size. Thanks to the restoration, the painting is in excellent conservation condition.
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SILVER Seller in Torino, Italy
