Ernest Ange Duez

Galerie Tibermont, Paris
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Probably, London, Librairie d'Art, 1881

This painting has been lined. There is fine craquellure confined to the dark pigments in the rocks. Under UV uneven varnish is revealed as are touch-ups around the perimeter, in the sitter's face and along the contour of her back, and uneven varnish fluoresces green.
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In 1881 a visitor to a London gallery remarked upon a "small exhibition of pictures... by French and other foreign artists" including "Sur la Falaise [in which] a very modern young lady perched on a cliff [is] painted by ME Duez" ("Notes on Art and Archeology," The Academy, May 21, 1881, p. 382).  Many critics considered Duez a "modern" artist comparing his compositions to those by  Édouard Manet (a connection particularly apparent with Duez's Au Restaurant le Doyen which sold in these rooms for over a million dollars in 2010).  As with many of Duez's works of the late 1870s and 1880s, Sur la Falaise likely depicts the artist's wife and daughter watching a flock of seagulls on the beaches of Villerville, Normandy.  After careful observation of his models, surf and sand, the artist effectively contrasts the finely painted details of the figures' cost.mes s with the rougher strokes of paint which make up the jagged rocks upon which they sit.