Watercolor on paper, inscribed "Paris" and dated circa 1880s at lower right, matted and framed under glass, retaining gallery documents.

Sheet size 17 1/4 x 11 in.; Frame dimensions 26 x 19 1/2 in.

From the estate of the late Robert H. Staton Jr., Durham, North Carolina

Comenos Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts.

Born in the Swedish city of Norrkoping on the Baltic Sea, August Franzen became known for his formal society portraits but was also successful as an impressionist landscape painter. From a young age, he apprenticed under Anders Gottman before moving to Stockholm where he studied under Carl Julius Olsen and Carl Larsen. In 1881, Franzen moved to Paris and enrolled in the Academy Julian, studying with William-Adolphe Bouguereau and Tony Robert-Fleury. In 1882, he made his first visit to the United States. He worked in the Chicago area from 1883 to 1885 and attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, studying under Charles A. Corwin. He continued to travel to Europe during the summers, working at the artist colony of Grez-de-Loing, and in 1886 enrolled at the Academy Colarossi.

He moved to the United States permanently in 1890 and occupied a studio in the Holbein Building in Manhattan. In 1892, he joined the Society of American Artists and began exhibiting at the National Academy of Design into the 1920s. In 1908, with Colin Cooper and Elliott Daingerfield, Franzen founded Gainsborough Studios in New York City, which he kept for the remainder of his life. His work is held in the collections of the National Gallery of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Yale University Art Museum, the Toledo Museum of Art, and the National Museum in Stockholm.

Good estate condition, not examined outside of frame.