Marie- Thérèse Reboul

MARIE-THÉRÈSE REBOUL ( Paris, 1735- 1806).
"Still life of peaches and vase".
Oil on canvas glued to old board.
Presents label on the back.
It has frame of the nineteenth century.
Measurements: 38 x 50 cm; 45 x 37 cm (frame).
The present still life, attributed to the French painter Marie-Thérèse Reboul, offers us a scene of great delicacy and compositional balance, in which natural elements and materials are combined with a remarkable light and chromatic sensitivity. In the central area of the composition, slightly displaced to the right, are three velvety-skinned peaches, whose warm tones range from golden yellow to orange-red, accurately capturing the texture and freshness of the fruit. These fruits rest naturally on an irregular surface of fragmented rock, an unusual support that introduces a rustic nuance and contrasts with the softness of the peaches.
To the left of the composition, a small glass vase holds a bouquet of flowers. The transparency of the glass, achieved through a masterful treatment of light and reflections, adds a touch of subtlety and refinement. The flowers, with open petals and subtle colors, reinforce the visual harmony and provide a vertical counterpoint to the horizontal arrangement of the fruit.
The background, in a gradient ochre, creates an enveloping and warm atmosphere, avoiding any distraction and focusing the attention on the objects represented. The tonal transition in the background contributes to a sense of depth and realism, highlighting the volumetry of the elements in the foreground.

Marie-Thérèse Reboul, commonly called Madame Vien, was a French painter and printmaker of natural history subjects, still lifes and flowers. In 1757, Marie-Thérèse Reboul married the painter Joseph-Marie Vien, nineteen years her senior. Nineteenth-century sources state that she was taught by her husband, but Joseph-Marie Vien's autobiography does not mention this. It is possible that she was a pupil of Madeleine Françoise Basseporte. Before her marriage, Reboul-Vien recorded for Sénégal: Coquillages (1757), by the French naturalist Michel Adanson, and Dissertation sur le papyrus (1758), by the French antiquarian Anne Claude de Caylus.
Reboul-Vien was one of only fifteen women admitted as full academicians in the 145-year history of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture de Paris. She was admitted in 1757, the same year she married Joseph-Marie Vien. Thirty-seven years had passed since the last woman, Rosalba Carriera, became an academician. Reboul-Vien's husband was a prominent member of the Académie, which was probably conducive to her acceptance. At the time, Reboul-Vien was described as "a painter of miniatures and gouaches specializing in flowers, butterflies and birds." Her reception work was Two Pigeons on a Tree Branch, which she presented to the Académie in 1762. He exhibited his works at the Salons of 1757, 1759, 1763, 1765 and 1767. At the 1767 Salon, Denis Diderot praised The Crested Hen Guarding Her Chicks as a "very beautiful little picture" that was "painted with great vigor and coloristic truth.... Everything is fine, even the bits of straw scattered around the hen" And he concluded, more critically: "I am surprised by your hen; I did not think her so accomplished" Even so, the reviews of Reboul-Vien's works were mostly positive. Several of his works were acquired by Catherine the Great. At the end of the 19th century, few of his watercolors could be located.