Alpes Maritimes, France by Louis Benjamin Floutier – £1200 at George Kidner.
The signed 16in x 2ft 5in (41 x 73.5cm) oil on board depicts a view of dense flowers and foliage in the Alpes Martimes, a region in the extreme southeast corner of France. Conservatively estimated at £100-150, it went on to sell for £1200.
Landscapes, marine scenes and genre paintings form a large part of the artist’s output, though he was also a camouflage artist and jointly founded the Ciboure pottery on the Basque coast in 1919.
At auction, Floutier’s most lucrative canvases are the crisp summer beach scenes of Saint Jean de Luz in south-west France. A premium-inclusive record of €62,498 (£52,000) was paid at Aguttes in Paris in 2010 for La plage de Saint-Jean de Luz.
