Rating and value of works, drawings, paintings by Guillaume Fouace

If you own a work by or after the artist Guillaume Romain Fouace, and would like to know its value, our state-approved experts and auctioneers will offer you their appraisal services. Our specialists will carry out a free appraisal of your work, and provide you with a precise estimate of its current market value. Afterwards, if you wish to sell your work, we will guide you towards the best possible arrangement to obtain the optimum price.

Rating and value of the artist Guillaume Romain Fouace

Guillaume Romain Fouace is a French painter who belongs to the realism movement and mainly produces portraits and still lifes, paintings as well as watercolor drawings. Today, his works sell for between €500 and €30,490. In 2008, a still life by Fouace featuring a lobster on a sloping copper plate sold for €24,000. Its value is stable.

Order of value from a simple work to the most prestigious

Style and technique by Guillaume Romain Fouace

Guillaume Romain Fouace draws inspiration from artists of the 17th and 18th centuries. He pays tribute to the works of great still-life masters such as the French Jean Siméon Chardin and the Nordic painter Pieter Claesz, in an academic and realistic style. His repertoire conceals a wide range of still-life subjects, from seafood and shellfish to glassware with a metallic sheen, and a refined transparency that evokes Dutch still-life, notably old paintings from the Northern schools.

Guillaume Romain Fouace also paints genre scenes, infusing a familiar, everyday air. In this case, he calls on the viewer to identify with the characters in his paintings of everyday life by painting fishing or hunting scenes with great authenticity.

The life of Guillaume Romain Fouace

Born in the hamlet of Jonville in Réville, Guillaume Romain Fouace grew up in the countryside, which quickly gave him a taste for drawing. At first, he was inspired by boats and animals, while young watercolorists gave him his first lessons. Noticed by the town councillor and curator of the Cherbourg museum, he painted the latter's portrait and was rewarded with a scholarship to continue his artistic training in Paris. In 1867, Guillaume Romain Fouace entered the prestigious Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and benefited from the teachings of painter Adolphe Yvon. Fouace began to earn his living with a fair number of portraits in the years 1871-1872, but still life soon became his signature.

Still life came back into vogue in the 1850s. Flemish and Dutch models were much in demand. However, critics and salons continued to view the genre with condescending. From 1870, Guillaume Romain Fouace regularly exhibited his work at the Salon. His participation in the Paris Salons of 1870 and 1872 established his reputation as a portraitist. Nevertheless, his still lifes were not unveiled to the public until the Salon of 1873.

Over a twenty-four-year artistic career, Guillaume Fouace took part in twenty Parisian Salons during his lifetime, at the Palais de l'Industrie. During this period, historical and even religious painting evolved in favor of representations of everyday life, the street, the countryside and the world of workers and peasants, and at the same time landscape occupied a growing place at the Salon. Guillaume Fouace exhibited abroad in the 1880s and regularly from 1890 until his death. From 1883, he exhibited at the Crystal Palace in Munich. 

Guillaume Romain Fouace's imprint on his times  

From time to time, Guillaume Fouace took an intimate look at his family. For all that, this look at childhood and family intimacy never achieved the prominence in Fouace's work that it did in the work of Millet, Renoir or that of Berthe Morisot. He was more interested in the worlds of peasants, fishermen and craftsmen for the beauty of the traditions they depicted.

Since the Revolution, few painters had taken an interest in the still-life genre, considered fairly minor. Throughout his career, Guillaume Fouace sought to establish himself in a wide variety of genres, including landscapes, portraits and genre scenes. Yet it was always for his still lifes that he was recognized.

Recognizing the artist's signature

Guillaume Romain Fouace signs his works at the bottom of his canvases with his name and the initial of his first name in a relatively fluid, round script.

Segmentation du marché et cote de l’artiste

Les huiles sur toiles constituent le segment quasi exclusif du marché de l’artiste. Les dessins et œuvres sur papier sont très rares, avec un impact marginal sur la cote. Les natures mortes (fruits, poissons et objets domestiques) constituent le segment le plus recherché et le plus liquide.

Les scènes de genre rurales ou intérieures constituent un marché plus étroit. Les portraits sont rares et ont surtout un intérêt documentaire. Les natures mortes sobres et bien composées constituent le cœur de la demande.

Les petits formats (25 – 40 cm) font partie du marché d’entrée avec une rotation rapide. Les formats moyens (40 – 70 cm) font partie du segment central le plus valorisé. Les grands formats sont rares, avec un marché plus sélectif.

Les critères de valorisation sont la qualité de la matière picturale et du rendu des textures, une palette sombre et équilibrée, sans affadissement, l’état de conservation (craquelures et restaurations visibles entraînant une décote), une signature lisible et un sujet clairement identifiable.

La France constitue le marché géographique principal, bien qu’il existe dans toute l’Europe un intérêt ponctuel pour les natures mortes réalistes du XIXème siècle. Fouace occupe ainsi un segment intermédiaire solide du marché de la peinture réaliste française. Les natures mortes de format moyen constituent le cœur de sa cote.

Reconnaître la signature de l’artiste

Guillaume Romain Fouace signe ses œuvres au bas de ses toiles de son nom et de l’initial de son prénom dans une écriture relativement fluide et ronde.

Knowing the value of a work

If you happen to own a work by Guillaume Romain Fouace, request a free appraisal without further delay via our form on our website. A member of our team will contact you promptly to provide you with an estimate of the value of your work, as well as any relevant information about it. If you're thinking of selling your work, our specialists will also be on hand to help you find alternatives for selling it at the best possible price.