Pierre Ernest Prins

French painter, printmaker and sculptor Pierre Prins (1838–1913) pursued an artistic practice whose different fields are also reflected in his career: training in drawing, learning to work with a variety of materials and taking part in an artists’ society. In 1861, he enrolled in drawing classes at a school of decorative arts. As an apprentice to his maternal grandfather, he learned to work with horn, metals, ivory and precious woods. In 1869, together with his sister Marie Lucienne, he took over the business of their grandparents, the Bourgeois family; five years later, he took part in the founding of the Société anonyme des artistes peintres, sculpteurs et graveurs. After a period of mourning, he returned to painting outdoors in 1878, setting up his easel in meadows and orchards.

The landscapes of Île-de-France remained his preferred subjects, although his travels took him to Brittany, Normandy, Aquitaine, England and Belgium. In 1894, Jean-François Raffaëlli entrusted him with testing the oil paint sticks he had invented. In Paris, the Georges Petit gallery devoted the 1890 exhibition « Pastels de Pierre Prins » to him, presenting 43 paintings. In 1907, exhibitions took place in Paris, Berlin, Cologne and Düsseldorf. Three years later, the Georges Petit gallery presented 48 still lifes, as well as various oil paintings and pastels, in Paris. In 2013, the musée de Fécamp organised an exhibition devoted to the artist under the title « Pierre Prins, un pastelliste impressionniste ».

The diversity of his practice is also represented by a patinated plaster bas-relief depicting Fanny Prins, held at the musée d’Orsay and dated circa 1877. The Musée des Beaux-Arts de Gaillac also holds *Coucher de soleil au-dessus de la Grésigne (Tarn)*, an oil on canvas dated 1907. Among the documented works is *Sablière près de Sceaux*, dated 1905 and described as oil and oil pastel on paper mounted on canvas. The general catalogue of the work, published in 1993 by the Association des Amis de Pierre Prins, lists it on page 194, no. 1202.h, with an illustration.

Works recorded at auction

Piguet

Sablière près de Sceaux

huile et craie grasse sur papier marouflé sur toile

Catalogue period : 2025-11-27 — 2025-12-10

Published result : 330 CHF

Fees not specified in the available data

Estimate : CHF 600–800

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