Under the olive Trees near San Remo
  • Arthur Calame
  • Geneva 1843 - 1919
  • Under the olive Trees near San Remo, 1868
  • Oil on board
  • signed on the lower left: AR. Calame,
    inscribed and dated on the verso: Mars / peint au copal & huile / 1868,
    old label with handwritten notice: Sous les oliviers / peinture de Ar. Calame ...
  • 220 × 298 mm

This oil study has been accepted into the catalogue raisonné of the artist currently under preparation by Dr. Michel Reymondin of Geneva. In his expert opinion, this work was made as a plein-air study in the region around San Remo on the Ligurian coast, in accordance with its old labeling. Arthur Calame received instruction as an adolescent from his father, the famous Alexandre (1810-1864). After the latter’s early death, no less than the eminent landscape painter Oswald Achenbach (1827-1905) took over the young artist’s education. Subsequently, Calame left for three years to pursue an apprenticeship in Düsseldorf, before resettling in his hometown of Geneva. The Achenbach School remained evident in his work throughout his life, however, as even this small oil study emphatically attests. The artist’s love for the Italian landscape, the warm light of the South, and its atmospheric merging of contours appear in exemplary fashion in our view.