210 - JEAN HENRI ZUBER (1844–1909)

JEAN HENRI ZUBER (1844–1909) Evening Stroll, Cannes 1882 Oil on canvas, signed, dated, and inscribed with the location in the lower left corner Dimensions: 27 x 40.5 cm Zuber was in Cannes in 1881 when he lost his wife; alone in the South of France, he continued to paint works that were noticed and appreciated by English art lovers. And it was in Cannes in 1882 that Henri Zuber painted this work during a particularly prosperous period for the seaside resort, at the height of its first great era of high society, frequented by European aristocracy, artists, and intellectuals who stayed there every winter. La Croisette, or the Cannes seafront, was rapidly transforming at the time under the influence of the grand hotels and villas that would soon make it one of the most sought-after destinations in the Mediterranean. Here, Zuber captures a twilight moment of great poetic beauty, as the sky gently glows with shades of pink and mauve-gray, while the last rays of daylight linger over the bustling promenade. In the background, the city’s white buildings and what appears to be a bell tower are faintly visible in the fading light, with the sea glistening to the left behind the foliage. The silhouettes of passersby, barely sketched, irresistibly evoke the grand urban scenes of Giovanni Boldini or Giuseppe De Nittis—those painters of elegant modernity who made Mediterranean high society their favored subject. Beyond its purely pictorial qualities, this work constitutes a historical record of exceptional value—a rare and authentic vision of Cannes in 1882, captured by a talented artist at the very moment the city was becoming legendary. - A French painter born in the Haut-Rhin region and a student of Gustave Courbet, Zuber began his career in Napoleon III’s Imperial Navy, where his talents as a draftsman and painter came to the fore during his long-distance voyages. Remaining aloof from the new artistic movements that characterized the second half of the 19th century, he developed a personal style drawing on Courbet’s realism and Impressionist freedom, which he applied with a particular fondness to scenes of elegant life and landscapes of the South of France.