Maurice Utrillo Painting
Medium: Oil on canvas Painting Dimensions: 11.14" (w) x 16.14" (h) Frame Dimensions: 18.90" (w) x 23.62" (h) x 2.60" (d) Frame Description: Gilded wood, decorated with acanthus and bay leaves
The painting was first acquired by my great grandfather during a trip he made to Europe sometime in the early 1900's. It has since remained in my family and passed down from generation to generation. The work is signed, though it's somewhat difficult to clearly read it. Our understanding is that it's the work of a French artist named Maurice Utrillo.
Inherited
Maybe
Good afternoon, Gabino,
Thank you for submitting photographs to Mearto for appraisal.
Maurice (Valadon) Utrillo (1883 - 1955) was active / lived in France. He is known for landscape and cityscene genre painting and stage design. He nearly always signed his works "Maurice Utrillo V" but I can't quite make that out in the photographs of the signature you have, though the scenery is typical of his works. Utrillo's works can command high prices at auction - it appears the record for his work is $1.1 million, set in 2010 but your painting is quite unlike that. Authenticated works by him of similar size and composition bring in the $30,000-50,000 range. It is likely that an expert in Utrillo's work would need to examine this to more adequately confirm the attribution to Utrillo.
This would be catalogued as:
Manner of Maurice Valadon Utrillo, French, 1883-1955)
Town landscape
oil on canvas, signed indistinctly lower right
sight dimesions: 11 by 16 inches
$30,000-50,000 (pending confirmation by an Utrillo expert)
Please let us know if you have additional items to appraise, and thank you for using Mearto.
Good morning Gabino,
His higher-valued works tend to be more impressionistic in their treatment - this has more realism that one typically sees. The Utrillo expert is the "Association Maurice Utrillo" (http://www.utrillo.com/en). They will probably suggest that you send them a photograph of the work and of the signature as a first step. Good luck!
Thank you, Madelia. You mentioned that this painting is quite unlike others of Utrillo that command higher prices-- why is that? Or what is it about it that is different in that regard? Also, would you be able to hook me up with an Utrillo expert to get a confirmation on the attribution? Or how should I go about doing that?