French Landscape Oil Painting by Alphonse Robert 1807-1885

A superb oil on canvas by the French artist Alphonse Robert 1807-1885. The scene depicted is a vast open landscape with a town in the distance and a shepherd with his flock. The foreground is dominated by a blasted oak tree to the side of which a lady is walking with a child, wrapped up against the cold. The work wonderfully depicts a wild and windy scene with the figures being buffeted and storm clouds rolling. There is a title in French on the reverse of the work however it is somewhat illegible but indicates a location in the north of the country. The reverse is also stencilled with numbers probably relating to an exhibition and the canvas is by the premier Parisian manufacturers Vallé et Bourniche. The painting is in excellent original condition and is signed Robert to the lower middle with the date of 1834. Alphonse Robert was a painter on both canvas and porcelain, he was born in Sèvres in 1807, and was the son of Jean François Robert director of the Manufacture de Sèvres. Alphonse Robert was attached to the Sèvres factory from 1833 to 1837 as a landscape painter. Alongside his career with Sèvres, Alphonse Robert also worked on easel painting and exhibited at the Paris, Valenciennes, and Boulogne Salons between 1827 and 1880 as a pupil of Léon Cogniet. He received a second-class medal for landscape in 1831. Two of his paintings are exhibited in the apartments of the Palais de Saint-Cloud. Alphonse Robert died in Sèvres in 1885. This painting is a fine early example of the artist’s work. The gilt frame is the original and of a suitably fine quality it has had areas of restoration. The whole has a great period look, the painting is of superb quality, the detail is stunning and is a fine example of French landscape painting. Overall sizes in inches including frame: 21 ½" by 18"