Robert Charles Gustave Laurent Mols Sold at Auction Prices

Painter, Naval painter, Etcher, Still life painter, Landscape painter

Flemish painter active in Antwerp. Mainly marines and landscapes.Robert Charles Gustave Laurens Mols, born June 22, 1848 in Antwerp, and died August 8, 1903 in the same city, is a Belgian painter, engraver and designer. He is the son of the painter Florent Mols. He studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, where he already won several prizes at the age of 13 years. At 15 he exhibited for the first time in Antwerp. At the age of 17 he left for France. Around 1868 he was in Barbizon. He has contacts with Antoine Vollon. He returned to Antwerp in 1870 and began to paint flowers, still lifes and seascapes in a clear and realistic style. In 1874 he painted oil on canvas Le Canal Saint-Pierre in Antwerp. In 1886 he went to Paris where he was a pupil of Jean-Francois Millet and Jules Dupre. He exhibited frequently at the Salon from 1873 and his works, much noted, were repeatedly bought by the French government, including Le Vieux Port de Marseille (1879) and Le President Carnot passing the review of the French fleet, in Boulogne (1890). His work is present at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, the National Maritime Museum in Antwerp, the Army Museum in Brussels and the museums of Dunkirk, Prague and Sete. In this last museum is preserved The canal from La Peyrade to Sete, executed in 1891. He was awarded numerous awards and notably obtained the cross of the Order of Leopold in 1879, and in 1900 that of the Knight of the Legion of Honor. He died on August 8, 1903 in his hometown.