1883 NEW ORLEANS Floral Painting CORINNE MELLEN Louisiana Artist
SOUTHERN CREOLEUSD $3,500.00
Condition : Used
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Offered for sale here is a beautiful antique, 1883, American oil painting on canvas depicting branches of cherry blossoms against a landscape background with the sky peeking through. Unframed. By 19th century New Orleans woman artist Corinne Castellanos Mellen (Am., 1863-1909). Listed as a Buy It Now or Make Offer item -- I'm here to sell & I appreciate your business! Mellen was the artist's married name. Corinne was Creole. Her mother was of French background and her father of Spanish decent. They spoke French. The artist’s tombstone in Lafayette Cemetery, NOLA reads: “Corinne Mellen”, “Nee Castellanos”, and “Decedee Le 5 Mai 1909”. There’s a picture of it online. I think this may be the only extant painting by Corinne Mellen. For an artist who exhibited at the Cotton Palace in the late 1880’s through mid 1890’s and was with the Artist’s Association of New Orleans, you'd think more of her work would surface. She was a prominent woman for decades in NOLA. Compare Corinne’s work to her peer, a flower painter in 19th century NOLA, Marie Madeleine Molinary (b.1866). She did a painting of branches of flowers floating against a landscape. It sold in 2015 at New Orleans Auction Galleries. I can tell this painting is on handmade stretcher bars, per the pencil lines and well-done but unusual key slots. It measures approx. 21 7/8 x 11 5/8 inches. The painting is signed “Corinne” and dated “Juin ‘83” (French for ‘June’, and ‘83 meaning 1883). The painting could use some conservation work. I blacklighted it and it’s not inpainted. An area in the center of the painting either has pentimento showing through or somebody tried to wipe it off and messed it up a little. Also, there are (other) paint losses, a couple small punctures that could be epoxy sealed, craquelure, and stretcher lines. I replaced the missing wooden stretcher keys (maybe it never had any, though). This oil on canvas reminds me of Martin Johnson Heade paintings. You can see his work such as “A Branch of Apple Blossoms” online. The Heade expert, Theodore Stebbins, noted in his bio of the artist that Heade painted in New Orleans in the mid 1800’s, after 1849 when he was back from Europe. So, NOLA people would’ve been talking about him. I’m not a expert on flowers, but it looks like cherry blossoms in this painting, and that’s possible because 20 years earlier in 1862, George Roger Hall introduced 15 different varieties to the USA. Corinne Mellen made the papers when she performed “Serenade” by Braga at the Union Francaise on Rampart Street in 1883, the year this painting was done. She was a mezzo soprano, a professional writer, and a fine art painter. Corinne was a classy lady - her father was a doctor and when she married, her husband was a lawyer. She was featured in Demorest’s Family Magazine in 1891 as a southern beauty. They wrote that “She is brilliantly intellectual, paints with an inspired brush, and has the sweetest mezzo soprano voice in New Orleans”. They showed a picture of her, too. I saw an auction listing online for a painting Mellen supposedly did, and it looks like folk art with a signature over another signature. I’m really not buying that one. You see, her father, Dr. John Joseph Castellanos was a sketch artist, illustrating his lectures with anatomical drawings. Corinne’s brother, JJ Jr., was an artist too. It was a family of good artists, not bad ones. CHECK MY FEEDBACK AND BUY WITH CONFIDENCE! *** 20+ years of happy customers on eBay *** Please see my other eBay listings for more great items. Message me to arrange for combined shipping on multiple purchases.
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