Rating and value of paintings by Anna Boch

If you own a work by or after the artist Anna Boch, and would like to know its value, our state-approved experts and auctioneers will offer you their appraisal services.

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Rating and value of the artist Anna Boch      

Anna Boch is an artist known to lovers of Impressionist paintings. Now, prices for her works are rising at the auctioneers' gavel.

Her oils on canvas are particularly prized, especially by Belgian buyers, and the price at which they sell on the art market ranges from €60 to €42,000, a large delta but one that speaks volumes about the value that can be attributed to the artist's works.

In 2015, his oil on canvas Port de Méditerrannée, was sold for €42,000, while it was estimated at between €20,000 and €30,000. Its value is stable.

Order of value from a simple work to the most prestigious

The style and technique of Anna Boch  

Anna Boch (1848 - 1936) is an artist associated with Belgian impressionism and neo-impressionism.

Her work evolves from the romantic realism of her early years to a luminous impressionism marked by the capture of light and atmospheres. Unlike the French Impressionists, she often retained a solid structure of motif, without complete dissolution in the brushstroke.

She was a member of the XX group, and developed a personal style that blended colorful freedom and thoughtful composition. Her pictorial technique is mainly oil on canvas, although she also practices drawing. Her brushwork is visible but supple, less jagged than that of the Fauves or strict Divisionists.

In certain periods, such as around 1890, she briefly adopted a neo-Impressionist approach, using small, juxtaposed strokes. She then returned to a freer style, on the borderline between Impressionism and poetic expression.

The artist used a luminous, nuanced palette (soft greens, washed blues, golden ochres, light violets), which were often worked in soft but vibrant harmonies. For her, color conveys clarity and restrained emotion, but is never garish or purely decorative.

She places great importance on overall harmony and the general tone of the painting. Anna Boch mainly depicted landscapes, garden scenes, quiet interiors and still lifes: peaceful, often familiar subjects that are sublimated by light.

Boch's compositions are airy, balanced, contrasting natural light and chromatic modulations. She brought a discreet, intimate sensibility to the painting of her time, far removed from the great modernist gestures or formal provocations.

Her work played a full part in the renewal of landscape painting at the end of the 19th century, integrating subtlety, solitude and inner vibration. She asserts herself as a singular figure, at the crossroads of the Belgian avant-garde and French Impressionist refinement, without ever totally fitting into a precise school.

The life of Anna Boch  

Anna Boch (1848 - 1936), was a Belgian painter born in Saint-Vaast, near La Louvière in Belgium. She came from a family of wealthy industrialists, who were the manufacturers of Boch frères porcelain.

She was brought up in a cultured, artistic milieu, as her brother Eugène Boch, also a painter, frequented Van Gogh. For her part, Anna trained alongside Isodore Verheyden and then Théo van Rysselberghe, with whom she was friends for many years.

She was an active participant in Brussels artistic cenacles, notably the XX, a Belgian avant-garde group where she was the only active female member. She exhibited regularly between 1885 and 1893 with the Vingt, then with the group La Libre Esthétique, from 1894.

Her work is marked by Impressionism, Neo-Impressionism and a personal sensitivity to landscapes and domestic scenes.

Anna Boch was also a shrewd collector, acquiring avant-garde works early on, including a painting by Van Gogh entitled La vigne rouge (this is probably the only work the painter sold during his lifetime).

She also provides financial and moral support for numerous Belgian and French artists, including James Ensor, Van Rysselberghe and Gauguin. Boch opened her salon and resources to young modern painters, playing a crucial role in the recognition of the avant-garde in Belgium.

The artist led a discreet life and was rooted locally, living between Brussels, La Louvière and the Belgian Coast, in relative discretion. She continued to paint well into old age, making no attempt to theorize or claim a place in art history.

Anna Boch died in Brussels in 1936, leaving behind an important body of work that was little known to the general public. Her personal collections were dispersed after her death, revealing the extent of her role as a patron of modern art.

She is now being rediscovered as one of the few women to have actively shaped the Belgian art scene of the late 19th century, both for her painting and her patronage.

Focus on Le Jardin à Hyères, Anna Boch, circa 1890

Le jardin à Hyères is an oil on canvas by Anna Boch circa 1890, held in a private collection. It depicts a sunny garden in the south of France, in Hyères, a town the artist frequented on several occasions.

It is an open-air scene with no human presence, centered on lush Mediterranean vegetation with cypresses, palm trees and flowering hedges. The space is structured but free, with paths, soft shadows and masses of vegetation flooded with light.

Anna Boch adds no dramatic effects, her touch is supple and vibrant, made up of small juxtaposed or intermingled incursions, typical of her personal impressionism. There is no strict divisionism as in Seurat or Van Rysselberghe, but a free, fluid impressionism, sometimes close to Monet.

As for the material, it remains light, without excessive impasto, letting the canvas breathe. The color palette is warm and fresh at the same time, with a mix of tender greens, pale yellows, milky blues and soft pinks.

The light is diffused but present throughout, filtered by the foliage and reverberated by the sandy walkways. The whole creates a serene chromatic harmony, very characteristic of her paintings of the Midi.

The painting embodies the intimate dimension of modernity for Anna Boch : no manifesto, no formal break, but a painting made of gaze, silence and lived color.

The Garden in Hyères is also a kind of self-portrait in hollow. In it, the artist withdraws from the world, while asserting a personal and luminous vision of reality. The work testifies to his meditative anchorage in the landscape and his ability to radiate light without dominating it.

Recognizing the artist's signature

Anna Boch does not necessarily sign her works. Copies may exist, which is why expertise remains important.

Knowing the value of a work

If you happen to own a work by or after Anna Boch, don't hesitate to request a free valuation using our form on our website.

A member of our team of experts and certified auctioneers will contact you promptly to provide you with an estimate of the market value of your work, as well as ad hoc information about it.

If you are considering selling your work, you will also be accompanied by our specialists in order to benefit from alternatives for selling it at the best possible price, taking into account market inclinations.