Siebe ten Cate - Market in Auxerre, 1905

Siebe Johannes ten Cate (1858-1908)

Market in Auxerre

Signed and dated lower right ‘Ten Cate 1905’

Oil on canvas

52 x 63 cm

Provenance:

Private collection, Antwerp.

Condition:

Very good.

A comparable work is held in the collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Additional information:

Market in Auxerre, painted in 1905, shows Ten Cate at his strongest. We see a lively French market square surrounded by old façades and filled with figures engaged in their daily routines. The Impressionist touch is clearly visible in the loose brushstrokes with which he fuses light, shadow and activity into a single whole. The women in dark clothing, the stalls beneath coloured parasols and the warm tones of the houses create an intimate and authentic picture of provincial France at the beginning of the twentieth century.

The Frisian Impressionist Siebe Johannes ten Cate (1858-1908) was a born traveller, driven by a constant curiosity about the world beyond his native province. He was born in Sneek and lost both parents at a young age. Thanks to the family capital he inherited, he was able to move to Paris at the age of twenty-two after training in The Hague and Antwerp. There he found his true inspiration and developed into a painter with a distinctive Impressionist style.

In Paris, Ten Cate became friends with artists such as Camille Pissarro and Alfred Sisley. He shared a studio with Kees van Dongen and met Vincent van Gogh, who mentioned him in his letters. He exhibited regularly in the Netherlands and abroad, including at the prestigious Paris Salon.

Although Paris became his permanent home, he continued to travel extensively. He visited Switzerland, Spain, Belgium, England, Scandinavia, Germany and North Africa. These journeys were an important source of inspiration. His oeuvre moves between tranquil landscapes and lively city views. From Lake Lucerne and the woods around Zwolle to the markets of Seville, the banks of the Thames and the bustling streets of Paris, he recorded everyday life wherever he went.

Ten Cate often worked en plein air, where he could observe changing light and daily life directly. His pastels, his favourite medium, possess a particularly distinctive quality. They capture a moment as if recorded with a camera on a long exposure: movement blurs, forms dissolve softly into one another and the atmosphere lingers. With loose brush and pastel strokes, lively effects of light and a subtle, dreamlike haze, Ten Cate uniquely conveyed light, movement and humanity. Alongside paintings and pastels, he also made a small number of etchings and lithographs.

His work is now included in the collections of, among others, the Rijksmuseum, the Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay, the Musée Carnavalet and the Fries Museum. Since 2020, the Siebe ten Cate Foundation has worked to reassess his oeuvre. This has led, among other things, to an extensive RKD study and a catalogue raisonné in 2025, followed by a concise monograph in 2026. Two exhibitions are also being prepared, in both the Netherlands and France.