A beautiful oil on Canvas of the Marketplace in the Creuse area by French Painter Fernand Maillaud.
Fernand Maillaud was born on December 12, 1862, in Mouhet in Indre.
Coming from a modest family, his father was a carpenter and his mother a teacher, he developed an aptitude for drawing at a very young age.
In 1878, his father being ill, he had to work as a clerk in a store, then in Paris in several department stores, to supply to the family income.
He married a young seamstress in 1886 and finally enrolled at the School of Fine Arts. Times were hard, but Fernand persisted in drawing and painting.
At that time he frequented a group of impressionist artists formed by Paul Gauguin.
Fernand often returned to the lands of his childhood and to the Creuse valley. It was there that he drew his inspiration from “the rural world” treated with an impressionist touch.
The representation of the peasant world is for him the ultimate inspiration, the landscape must be animated by the work of men and the animals that accompany them.
He started to participate in the Salon des Artistes Français in 1896 and sent works throughout his career, and was rewarded by a gold medal.
His acquaintances introduced him to Ferdinand Humbert, then a very influential painter, who allowed him to receive state commissions.
Now free of material worries, Fernand devoted himself to his career, painting, exhibiting and selling.
His work was, at last, present in the most prestigious Parisian galleries (Georges, Petit, Bernheim Jeune, Durand Ruel…) but also in prestigious exhibitions abroad (New-York, Seattle, Buenos-Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo, Oran, Algiers).
He was made an officer of the Legion of Honor in 1947 and died in Paris in 1948.
He is represented in more than 30 museums, both abroad and in France, including the Carnavalet Museum, the Orsay Museum, the Petit Palais…
The work depicts a market scene in a village in Creuse.
This work is part of the artist’s desire to reproduce scenes of rural life in these countrysides dear to his heart.
As in all these countrysides, the church is in the center of the village, here represented on the entire right side of the canvas.
Women in traditional headdresses crowd under the covered market, where the hustle and bustle of market days is palpable.
Oil on canvas mounted on cardboard is signed lower right side.
Unframed 10 1/2 X 13 1/2
Framed 16 x 19 1/2