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Bois de Boulogne signed (lower left) oil on canvas 12" x 21" (30 cm x 53 cm) PROVENANCE Private collection, Bordeaux, France (by descent from the family who acquired the work in Spain at the beginning of the 20th century) Osenat, The Floralies - Modern and Contemporary Art, Versailles, 15 June 2025, Lot 32 Belle Époque Paris creatively transformed Félix Resurrección Hidalgo. As he possessed a placid, tranquil spirit, the breeze and exuberance of this city in its golden age liberated Hidalgo from the conservatism of Neoclassicism to the airy and loose feeling of Impressionism. Paris was once the city that never slept. Jose Rizal described it as where “man is a real ant,” with “streets where you cannot see where they end but nevertheless are straight, wide, and well-paved….” Shops, cafes, bouillions, and breweries sprouted like mushrooms, catering to the thousands of travelers from all over the world, all wanting to experience and push the boundaries of what it meant to truly live—the joie de vivre. Like any other ilustrado, Hidalgo experienced all of this. But when all the lights had dimmed out, a man could be seen sleeplessly drowning in melancholy. The homesick Hidalgo, separated from his family and motherland for three decades since he first sailed to Spain as a pensionado, turned to a Spanish song titled Canto del Destierro (Song of the Exile), which he intended to use as an inspiration for a monumental painting that he planned to execute after winning the silver medal at the 1884 Madrid Exposition. He summarized his creative thoughts in a letter to his patron Francisco de Yriarte, writing that the painting is a “human sentiment of the homeland, which always brings up the most melancholy memories.” Hidalgo became a soul wandering in solitude and homesickness, only tempered by a constant exchange of letters with his sister Rosario (who was also his best friend and confidant) and relinquished through the power of his brush. For Hidalgo, nothing felt like home more than his own motherland. This explains the artist’s numerous works depicting a woman lamenting in the woods, an allegory of Hidalgo isolated from and yearning for his native land. Away from the excitement of Paris, Hidalgo found pockets of urban refuge in the city’s public parks, where he sought inspiration and released all his repressed emotions through sketching and painting. Hidalgo’s favorite park was the historic Bois de Boulogne, founded on land that was formerly an oak forest used as royal hunting grounds and later granted to the Parisian government by the last French monarch, Napoleon III, in 1852. Bois de Boulogne was (and still is) a peaceful oasis in the midst of a bustling city, possessing artificial lakes and streams filled with people rowing their boats and also turning into skating parks during winters; romantically elegant gardens; scenic promenades and pathways where families and couples strolled on feet and some on their bicycles and horse-drawn carriages wandered people into the lush woods and verdant lawns that were also brimming with families and friends enjoying their picnics, reading books, crafts such as embroidery and sewing, and children playing freely; and hippodromes that cater to horseracing on bright, sunny days. This painting, titled Bois de Boulogne, is one of Hidalgo’s several works depicting the scenic urban oasis (a similar painting, created in 1894, is now in the collection of the Eugenio Lopez Foundation). Alfredo Roces wrote in his book on Hidalgo that it was in the Bois de Boulogne where he “spen[t] much time capturing wooded scenes.” Bois de Boulogne is remarkably Impressionist in style and follows in the footsteps of the Impressionists who had immortalized the Parisian leisure in the park: Renoir’s Skaters in the Bois de Boulogne (1868), Van Gogh’s Bois de Boulogne with People Walking (1886), and Mary Cassatt’s A Woman and a Girl Driving (1881). Hidalgo’s Bois de Boulogne depicts a Parisian woman crossing a single-arch stone bridge across an artificial stream. There is an aura of wistful beauty attached to this work, emphasized by the soft, subdued glow of oranges in the background, depicting the sunset, and by the solitude of the woman as she crosses the bridge and wanders into the woods, which Hidalgo rendered in shadowy grays, adding a layer of enigma. Beauty in melancholy is central to this work. In the soothing vibrancy of the Bois de Boulogne, Hidalgo found comfort and peace as he painted the impressions of his mind, letting them flow through his quick yet sure strokes. And it is in transporting himself to the mystical, solitary world of his works that he healed his soul, choosing to maintain, as he wrote in his letter to Rosario, “a tranquil and serene spirit, straighten[ing] out sad thoughts and stay[ing] very calm and hav[ing] great confidence in the future.” The hazy rendering and ambiguous nature of this work leave the audience with an open ending, something that Hidalgo actually practiced in real life. Although many of his paintings bear that sense of languishing, Hidalgo remained enduring in spirit, writing to his beloved sister, “Let us shape [life] as it is…Fortitude, and not tears…is what God expects of us.” For Hidalgo, what it truly meant to live in Belle Époque Paris was to live life consciously as God willed it.