Luc Raphael PONSON
Rocks in the Mediterranean.
Oil on mahogany panel signed lower left.
On the back: signed and titled “Rochers en Méditerranée”.
Dimensions: 16 x 22 cm.
The painter represents here a windy day. White sheep of foam appear on the surface of the water, sailboats spin. Beautiful thicknesses of material sculpt the white rocks and the sea.
We are most certainly located in the vicinity of Marseille and its Calanques.
Provençal master, Luc Raphaël Ponson is the painter of the creeks and creeks that cut the coast from Marseille to La Ciotat. He will become the great specialist of the seaside and coastal areas of Provence.
Son of a theater decorator who taught him the basics of painting, he took lessons at the practical drawing school in Marseille where he was a pupil of Emile Loubon, who taught him how to paint landscapes.
He went to Paris in 1855 and 1856, then to Italy where he completed his training. He then settled permanently in Marseille. He debuted at the Salon de Marseille in 1852, and at the Salon de Paris in 1861.
In 1863, he decorated the gallery of the private apartments of the new prefecture of Marseille as well as the rooms of the Natural History Museum where he painted spectacular natural sites: Niagara Falls, Mer de Glace…
The most famous room is that of Provence, where Ponson represents different landscapes for each of the small regions of Provence: He also decorates the Rigaud café and the Plauchut pastry shop at the top of the Canebière in Marseille.
Present in many regional exhibitions, he obtained several awards.
Museums:
Aix-en-Provence, Granet museum; Avignon, Calvet museum; Béziers, Museum of Fine Arts; Carcassonne; Museum of Fine Arts; Cassis, Mediterranean municipal museum; Digne-les-Bains, Gassendi museum; Dijon, Museum of Fine Arts; Hyeres; Marseille, prefecture hall of the Bouches-du-Rhône; Marseille: Museum of Fine Arts Navy Museum; Bouches-du-Rhône prefecture hall, private apartments: four circular paintings, commissioned on May 23, 1866 by the prefect Charlemagne de Maupas to decorate a gallery of his apartments, representing districts of Marseille; The Longchamp Palace; Republic Street; Borély Park; The Lighthouse; Narbonne, Museum of Art and History; Toulon, Art Museum: Undergrowth at Sainte-Marguerite; Towers, Museum of Fine Arts
