19th c. Oil on Board by Alexandre-Gaston Guignard (french 1848-1922) "Paysage Nocturne". Oil on Board, no signature. A couple on a country road at night. Purchased in Paris.In a gilt wood frame, also French. PROVENANCE: A Private Paris France and Charleston SC Collection. Alexandre-Gaston Guignard first studied law and became a member of the Paris Bar. After serving in a regiment of dragoons during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, Guignard followed his artistic vocation and entered the workshop of the painter Jules Jean Ferry, before following the teaching of Henri Gervex and Ferdinand Humbert. Guignard exhibited at the Paris Salon from 1874 to 1882, winning a jury commendation in 1883, a third-class medal in 1884, a second-class medal in 1887, and a silver medal at the Exposition Universelle of 1889. He also exhibited in Rio de Janeiro, in 1906 and 1908. He was made a Chevalier of the Legion d'Honneur in 1891. Nocturnal scenes were very popular in the late 1900s. Gustave Courbet along with the work of Honor Daumier, Jules Breton, Jean-Francois Millet, and others created the Realist school intending to portray ordinary people and events hard at work, traveling, or just being engrossed in their everyday lives, at night and during the day. The Impressionists and Post-Impressionists of the late 19th century used the nighttime theme to express a multitude of emotional and aesthetic insights seen most dramatically in the paintings of Edgar Degas, Paul Cezanne, Vincent van Gogh and others. Wt. 1 pd 6 oz. In Frame 12.50x10.25

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