Lot 1184 | Franz Roubaud | Rural Landscape with Cart

ROUBAUD, FRANZ
1856 Odessa - 1928 Munich

Title: Rural Landscape with Cart.
Technique: Watercolour and gouache on card.
Measurement: 29 x 36.5cm.
Notation: Signed lower right: "F. Roubaud".
Frame: Framed.

Verso:
"Ich, Helene Roubaud, bescheinige die Echtheit dieses Bildes meines Vater Franz Roubaud. Helene Roubaud 1977".

Provenance:
Private ownership, Germany.

Olga Sugrobova-Roth who examined the drawing in original in August 2025, confirms the authenticity of the work. The drawing will be included the digital addendum of the catalogue raisonné under cat. rais. no. A 1 - Works on Paper.

Franz Roubaud, son of French immigrants in Odessa, is viewed as THE painter of the second half of the 19th century, for motifs from the Caucasus and the remote areas of the Tsarist Empire to date. His paintings are prominently represented in numerous international museums and large collections. Three works of Franz Roubaud can be introduced here that show the various sides of his work:

One very typical work from 1916 (cat. 1185) depicts a retinue of mounted soldiers while crossing the river. Roubaud paints the picture of the foreign soldiers on horsebacks with many details in the foreground. Compositionally he intersects the riders' direction of movement with the flow direction of the water. By means of hazy indication of the riders in the distance as well as the overlap of the group in the right image margin the impression of a numerically strong army is created. The "star" of the rearguard is the horseman on a white horse, who performs the feat of horsemanship to rein his horse while playing the balalaika spielt and additionally holding a spear in the bow of his arm. His intense action contrasts with the motionless posture of the forerounded horseman. With a swift effortless stroke Franz Roubaud has painted the scene on the canvas which imparts the painting almost sketch-like ease.

The second painting stems from a very different and comparably rarely exhibited topics of Franz Roubaud that shows a landed fisher boat with five fishermen at the coast of the Black Sea (cat. 1186). This painting also clearly demonstrates Roubaud's magnificent skill as a colourist, contrasting the various shades and gradients of blue in the sky and sea with just a few tones of red and orange. In a bold compositional move, he allows the ship's tall mast to tower against the clear sky.

Rarer are works on paper by Franz Roubaud. The gouache (cat. 1184) shows a horse cart in a hilly painting with the hazily recognisable gold-shimmering silhouette of a city or town at the horizon. In an almost monochromous colouring Franz Roubaud achieves an intense foreign atmosphere with the most simple means imaginable and presents a comprehensive story for the spectator's imagination.