Ernest Ange DUEZ (Paris 1843 - Saint-Germain-en-Laye 1896) Fiacre under the snow in the Bois de Boulogne, 1885 Pastel on paper. Signed and dated lower left: "E. Duez - January 85". Dedicated at the bottom center: "to Mr Hoentschel Souvenir Sympathique". Inscribed with an illegible pencil at the bottom right: " les ... ... ". 36,4 x 46,3 cm Provenance: Former collection Georges Hoentschel (1855-1915), decorator, ceramist and collector. By descent until today. Bibliography : N. Hoentschel, Georges Hoentschel, Paris, 1999, p. 134, reproduced. p. 133. A student of Isidore Pils, Ernest-Ange Duez painted portraits, genre scenes and landscapes. He exhibited regularly and successfully at the Salon from 1868 on. He participated in the great decorations of the Third Republic: the Sorbonne, the Opera and the Hôtel de Ville in Paris. A classically trained painter, he gradually moved towards a naturalist work. As Zola noted in his analysis of the 1881 Salon, "here is the campaign of the Impressionists, who are joked about, but whose influence grows every day, finally, the rebels of the École des Beaux-Arts, Gervex, Bastien-Lepage, Butin, Duez, have passed into the camp of the moderns and seem to want to put themselves at the head of the movement. Duez liked to paint outdoors, like the Impressionists whom he admired. Spending many summers in Villerville, Normandy, his pastels and watercolors show his search for tonal harmony and his gift for observation in rendering light effects. Duez invites us here to a scene of daily life at the end of the 19th century, a walk in the Bois de Boulogne. But an unusual walk because the snow has invaded the landscape. The coachman has moved away from his carriage at a standstill, leaving the occupants an intimate alcove in the middle of the winter silence.