Attrib. Eugène Galien-Laloue Quayside at Dusk

An original late 19th-century oil painting, Attrib. Eugène Galien-Laloue, Quayside at Dusk.

A wonderful, impressionistic sketch in oil on card attributed to Eugène Galien-Laloue (1854–1941). Galien-Laloue is best known for his Parisian street scenes that capture fin-de-siecle life in the city's Grands-Boulevards. He also painted landscapes of Normandy and Seine-et-Marne. This oil sketch likely shows a harbour in Normandy or Brittany; he painted similar known views at Saint-Malo and Dunkirk.

The painting is signed with one of Galien-Laloue's numerous pseudonyms, 'E. Galiany'. It is thought that he adopted pseudonyms because he was in exclusive contract with one gallery, so he used alternative names to market his paintings more broadly outside of that contract.

Whilst Galien-Laloue's paintings of Parisian architecture were meticulously detailed, his landscapes and harbour scenes were more attuned to the painterly tradition of the Barbizon School and the Impressionists, recording life in the French countryside in light-filled canvasses. Many of the artist's ship and dockland subjects—like the present painting—are not identified locations but rather evocations of atmosphere; his concern is always with the feeling of a place.

Here the limited palette evokes a sense of failing evening light, and the white suggests recent snowfall. Figures and boats are silhouetted in black; the grey intimates an impression of industry. But it is a tranquil scene, still and quiet, under the harmonising glow of setting sun or rising moon.

Presented in a very pretty 19th-century carved ebonised gesso, wood and gilt frame.

Image size: 19 x 24cm. Frame size: 34 x 39cm.