Rating and value of paintings by Henri Zuber

If you own a work by artist Henri Zuber or based on his work and would like to know its value, our state-approved experts and auctioneers will guide you.

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Artist's rating and value

Henry Zuber's works are quite popular on the art market, especially when it comes to his seascapes and mountain landscapes.

His oils on canvas are the most prized by collectors, and can fetch tens of thousands of euros at auction.

As witness his painting An animated scene in Japan with a view of the snow-covered Fuji-Yama, fetched €27,500 in 2021 in Paris, while it was estimated at between €10,000 and €15,000. 

Order of value from the most basic to the most prestigious

The artist's works and style

Henri Zuber's works are characterized by a strong focus on landscapes. His paintings are imbued with light and realism. The artist is best known for his landscapes, which combine precise drawing and subtle atmospheric effects.

His landscapes can be described as realistic. He pays particular attention to variations in light, but also to natural details. Zuber is strongly influenced by the Barbizon School and Impressionism, even though he was trained in an academic setting. This testifies to his great sensitivity to the innovations of his time.

The artist adopts a fairly free brushstroke and a luminous color palette - influenced on this point by the Impressionists, while retaining a certain rigor in the composition.

His technique is mastered both with the medium of watercolor and with oil paint; he masters both with harmony and transparency, enabling him to capture quite subtle atmospheres. For his oils on canvas, he works meticulously with textures, reflections and the interplay of light and shadow, giving his landscapes great depth.

His eye is turned towards nature (lots of trees, greenery and forest like the École de Barbizon), but also towards the marines, where he takes care to depict the waves and chromatic variations of water with accuracy and dynamism.

He also worked on mountain, countryside and coastal landscapes, which reveal in this artist a certain fascination for wide open spaces and changing skies.

Zuber is thus distinguished by his delicate approach to landscape, which combines the precision of realism with a sensibility close to impressionism. Like many artists of his time, his work oscillates between tradition and modernity.

He blends influences, capturing the essence of nature with great subtlety but also establishing himself as one of the most refined landscape artists of his time.

The life of Henri Zuber

Henri Zuber (1844-1909) was born in Rixheim, Alsace. Initially trained as a soldier, he later became interested in art. It was Charles Gleyre who was his main teacher at the Beaux-Arts in Paris, a rigorous master appreciated for his lessons and advice.

Marked by his experience in the Army, he took part in the war against Prussia, which took place in 1870, among other events. Thanks to his military travels, he had the opportunity to observe different landscapes and capture their sensibility.

Zuber thus became a recognized landscape painter, specializing in landscape painting in the broadest sense, but also in the more restricted field of marine paintings. From the 1870s onwards, he regularly exhibited his work at the Salon.

This springboard soon brought him recognition and recognition, as well as several awards, including the Salon des Artistes français medal. Having produced many watercolors and working particularly with this medium, he is a member of the Société des Aquarellistes Français.

His career is marked by travel, Zuber criss-crossing France to discover more and more of nature, and lingering in particular on Brittany and Normandy, where he has the opportunity to paint numerous seascapes. He also explored the landscapes of Switzerland.

His recognition was official and his influence lasting: Henri Zuber was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur in 1896, thus consolidating his recognition on a national level. What's more, his work remains influential in the French landscape tradition, blending academic precision with Impressionist sensibility.

So, Zuber's career, at the crossroads of Academism and Naturalism, bequeaths a body of work in which light and nature occupy a central place. His career, which combines military discipline and artistic freedom, enabled him to forge a style where rigorous drawing blends with sensitive atmospheres, helping to make him a major figure of 19th-century French landscape.

Focus on Falaises en Bretagne, Henri Zuber

Zuber's oil on canvas Falaises en Bretagne depicts a seaside scene with high Breton cliffs plunging into a calm sea. The light is soft and diffused, the scene probably taking place in the late afternoon, and bathes the composition.

The sky occupies a large part of the canvas, with light clouds adding depth. Shades of blue, gray and ochre dominate the palette, helping to reinforce the scene's naturalism. The composition is built on a balance between the rocky masses and the expanse of the sea.

The organization of space is designed so that the cliffs form a diagonal that guides the eye from the foreground towards the horizon. The softening of hues in the composition's distant planes creates an atmospheric perspective effect.

The light is intended to be soft and diffused, capturing the subtle variations of shadows on the rocks. The palette is restrained but nuanced, playing on cool tones as well as warmer touches for the rock. The water discreetly reflects the sky, creating an effect of transparency and realism.

This painting illustrates Zuber's fascination with nature and his eye for detail, but also his desire to convey an atmosphere that is more than just a landscape, offering a sense of calm and immensity. He treats the work with precision yet sensitivity, bringing it closer to the naturalist movement - evoking an impressionist touch in the rendering of light.

With Falaises en Bretagne, Zuber here demonstrates his mastery of seascapes and watercolor, finely capturing the different plays of light and atmospheric nuances. His approach is both rigorous and poetic, placing this work in the tradition of the great nineteenth-century landscape painters.

Henri Zuber's imprint on his period

Henri Zuber established himself in the 20th century as a recognized landscape painter, distinguished by his meticulous and poetic approach to nature. The influence of the Alsatian school and Impressionism can be seen in his work.

Although trained in the realist tradition, he was inspired by the Alsatian masters, but gradually incorporated an Impressionist sensibility into his work, especially in his treatment of light and its atmospheres.

His talent was also particularly recognized in watercolor, and he became a specialist in this technique - which enabled him both to work on the delicacy of color gradations and to work nuances differently than on oils on canvas, but also to represent variations in the sky and sea differently - thus exerting an influence on other watercolorists of his time.

His various trips to Brittany, Switzerland and the Vosges enriched his output and demonstrated an attentive eye for European landscapes, helping to broaden the perception of landscape within French painting.

Zuber is a member of the Société des Aquarellistes français, and actively participates in the dissemination as well as the recognition of this technique, and consequently participates in the rise of this technique in twentieth-century art.

Zuber's legacy and impact are discreet but lasting; he is less famous than some of his contemporaries, but his work nonetheless remains a benchmark in landscape painting, inspiring subsequent generations with his attention to detail and subtle approach to light and color.

His signature

Not all of Henri Zuber's works are signed.

Although there are variations, here is a first example of his signature:

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