Tony-Georges Roux

TONY-GEORGES ROUX (1894-1928).
"Josephine and Napoleon in the gardens of Versailles", 1917.
Oil on canvas.
Signed and dated in the lower left corner.
Presents patch on the back of the canvas.
Measurements: 131 x 97 cm; 149 x 115 cm (frame).

Antoine Georges Roux was son of the also painter Alexandre Georges Roux, and Marie Victoire Adélaïde Pous. It is known that he competed between 1919 and 1922 for the "Prix de Rome" and that he died prematurely at his home in Versailles at the age of 34.

The work plays with the light of an autumnal sunset that bathes facades and gardens, leaving part of the canvas in shadow broken by an accurate diagonal. It shows a melancholic landscape of pale ochre tones made from colored stains that give the sensation of freshness and humidity. In this way, a landscape characteristic of autumn days is configured, where the breeze combs the trees and scatters the leaves on the horizon. The loose brushstrokes used by the author delimit the vegetation and the façade, among which we can glimpse the protagonists, Napoleon and Josephine, who walk through the scene, dwarfed by the magnitude of the landscape.