River Landscape - Antique Oil Painting

Oil on canvas by the Belgium artist Xavier Wurth showing an attractive wooded valley with a river/canal. The painting is signed, mounted in a simple wooden frame and inscribed on the rear of the canvas. The painting dates from the late 19th/early 20th century.

Xavier Wurth was born in 1869 in Liège and died in 1933. He was a painter of landscapes and portraits. From 1889 to 1893, he was student of Witte and E Carpentier at the Academy of Fine Arts of Liège. Later, from 1900 to 1914, he painted the Ardennes - particularly the valleys of the Ourthe and Amblève. He then became professor of drawing at the Academy of Fine Arts in Liège. However, from 1924 illness hampered his work. Wurth exhibited annually in the circle of fine arts of Liège and distinguished himself as a lovable landscape artist, particularly skilled in the rendering of the Ardennes rivers. From 1889 to 1893, he studied with Adrien de Witte and Évariste Carpentier at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Liège .

He exhibited on numerous occasions and was awarded the the Prix de Rome. He was a friend of Richard Heintz, Auguste Donnay and Albert Sirtaine. He was particularly well known for the delicate brilliance he gave to his Ardennes landscapes. A dozen of his works can be found at the Museum of Walloon Art.

He had a notable influence on the painter Léon Sougné of Barvaux-sur-Ourthe (1895-1964), but his most outstanding pupil was Paul Lepage (Antwerp, 1869-La Hulpe, 1958), another jewel of the Liège School of Landscape, who practiced his art especially in the region of Remouchamps.

Wurth, died slowly at his estate at Esneux (where he fished trout) and was known to be a 'gentle and sensitive soul'.

Dimensions - 63 cm 47 cm

Ref: 00991

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