Firmin Maglin 1867-1946

“I must confess that these delicate works, executed with meticulous and tightly controlled brushwork, with an absolute distinction of color, which retained in the sincerity of their handling something like a poetry of rustic calm, surprised me in this rather loud and extravagant milieu[1].”

In November 1899, in his review of the Salon des Cent, where Firmin Maglin presented around sixty paintings, Octave Uzanne did not fail to describe the surprise he experienced when he first encountered the artist’s landscapes a few years earlier, at the Salon des Indépendants. The man of letters recognized the singular symbolism contained in these pure, tranquil views, treated in a synthetic manner and emphasizing the intimacy of rural motifs, exemplified by the three paintings we present here.

The son of a porcelain painter established in Paris, Firmin Maglin first studied drawing at two municipal schools in the capital, Germain‑Pilon and Bernard‑Palissy, before entering the studios of Ferdinand Humbert and Henri Gervex. In 1890, he made his debut at the Salon des Artistes Français, where he exhibited regularly until 1909. At the same time, he presented his works in more avant-garde circles, participating continuously in the Salon des Indépendants between 1894 and 1914, as well as in the Salon d’Automne in 1903 and 1904.

It was in 1894 that he truly drew critical attention by sending a series of landscapes to the three successive exhibitions of Impressionist and Symbolist Painters, organized in March, July, and November at the Galerie Le Barc de Boutteville. The following year, he participated in the Salon des Cent, conceived by Léon Deschamps and newly launched in the hall of the magazine La Plume. In 1902, Maglin left the capital to settle in the Loiret region, between Montgeron and Chantecoq, a pastoral setting that would continually inspire the subjects of his paintings. This voluntary withdrawal from the capital’s bustle did not prevent him from appearing in major exhibitions, in Paris as well as in London, where some of his landscapes and portraits were shown at the Doré Gallery in November 1908. Within this context of international recognition, three of his poetic landscapes were acquired in 1904 by Sergei Shchukin[2], further testament to his esteem among avant-garde circles.

[1] Uzanne, O., “Un peintre de quiétudes rustiques – M. Firmin Maglin,” La Plume, November 1899, p. 720.
[2] Dated 1894, one of these three landscapes is currently held at the Odessa Museum, the other two, dated 1898 and 1899, are in the collections of the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg (inv. 6558 and 7715).