Antique French Floral Watercolor, Signed Salanson, Paris, circa 1899

A signed antique French watercolor, an aquarelle of full pink cabbage roses with blue forget-me-nots and a froth of white filler, gathered in a footed clear glass vase with a few petals fallen on the table and a soft striped wallpaper behind. The handling is confident and loose in the wet-on-wet passages, the roses built up in layered washes from pale to deep rose, the mark of real watercolor skill rather than a print. It sits under old wavy glass and is housed in a carved giltwood frame with a ribbon-twist outer molding and a beaded inner edge.

The signature lower right reads Blanche Salanson. The framer's label on the reverse, Moirinat, 184 Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Paris, is a real and traceable Right Bank house whose mark is recorded on a documented work dated 1899, which helps place this firmly at the turn of the century.

Condition, disclosed plainly: light foxing and scattered spotting in the paper, the usual toning of a paper work of this age, and honest rubbing to the gilt frame.

Measures 10.5 by 12.5 inches framed.

Styling: hang it alone where the roses and the gilt frame can carry a wall, or lean it on a mantel or shelf among other framed works and small objects.