Artist: Jean Pierre Edmond Castan (1817-1892) French

Title: Lost in the Woods

Medium: Oil on Panel

Size 18 3/8” x 16 ¼” Unframed; 21” x 16” Framed

Price: $12,000

Castan’s very fine technique and the multitude of details he brings to his compositions are readily noticeable in Lost in the Woods. The children bring a particular freshness to this work as they stand facing three directions musing over which path to take. The eldest child, with a reassuring arm around the young girl, trying to remember where they began their journey and the young boy clutching the dress of the younger girl to steady himself against a dark and frighteningly unfamiliar forest in the background. Suddenly the fragrant floral bouquet has lost its charm as the three young adventurers ponder the uncertainty of being completely lost. The 8x6” oil on panel is ensconced in multiple wood mats and completed by a delicately carved wood frame which measures 16 ¼ x 18 3/8”. The work is in excellent condition, signed Edmond Castan in the lower left and dated 1865. A collector's piece.

Biography:

Edmond Castan (1817-1892) was a French artist born in Toulouse in Haute-Garrone specializing in capturing simple moments of daily life, interior scenes of peasants and children playing games. A pupil of neoclassical painter Francois Gerard, he also followed the teaching of Martin Drolling in Paris. Castan began his exhibition career in the Salon of French Artists in 1868. In 1875 he began sending portraits to the Salon and continued to do so through 1880.