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Signed and dated ‘Rambinintsoa 63’ (lower left).
Sizes:
Frame: 61 × 49.5 cm | 24 × 19.5 in
Artwork: 51.5 × 40.5 cm | 20.3 × 15.9 in
Under a canopy of white parasols, flower sellers stand behind buckets and baskets overflowing with orange, red, white and mauve blooms; a few figures in blue move among the stalls and cumulus clouds drift overhead. This is the flower market of Analakely in Antananarivo, the most famous motif of Malagasy painting and the signature subject of Jean Rambinintsoa.
Rambinintsoa (1899–1986), trained in Paris and for many years a teacher of drawing in Madagascar, was the leading painter of the island’s first modern generation, alongside Ramanankamonjy and Ramiandrasoa. His market scenes, painted from the 1930s to the 1960s, combine an Impressionist touch with a warm, distinctly Malagasy palette of terracotta, ochre and sky-blue.
Signed and dated ‘Rambinintsoa 63’ at the lower left.
Good condition: the canvas tacked directly into the frame, unlined and untorn; the thick paint layer stable, with a fine, even network of age cracks in the sky and the parasols; a single pinpoint loss under 2 mm beside the signature and a light film of surface dirt; no retouching; old handling stains to the reverse; the frame sound. Please contact us to request a detailed Condition Report.
This lot is catalogued under the artist’s name without qualification and is covered by our Five-Year Authenticity Guarantee under Section 4 of the Conditions of Sale. The guarantee concerns authorship; it does not extend to provenance, dating, condition or value, which are described to the best of our knowledge.
Buyers should review the catalogue carefully and raise any questions before bidding; additional information is not ordinarily provided after the auction.
Five years on authorship for works catalogued under the artist’s name without qualification (Section 4 of our Conditions of Sale); headings such as “Attributed to” or “Circle of” are sold as described.
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The estimate of €400–€600 is our opinion of the range this work should reach; the starting price of €300 is the lowest bid we accept. We have not published comparable results for this lot; ask us before the sale and we will send the results we based the estimate on.
Bidding on this site, the buyer’s premium is 25%, Spanish IVA included, and there is no VAT on the hammer price and no card fee: at the starting price of €300 the total is €375; at the low estimate of €400 the total is €500; at the high estimate of €600 the total is €750.
Through LiveAuctioneers, Invaluable, Drouot or Bidspirit the premium is 30%, so the same hammer of €600 costs €780 there. Shipping and insurance are quoted separately; the estimator on this page gives the figure for your country. Buyers outside the EU pay no Spanish tax on the lot; the destination’s import rules apply (United States: original paintings and drawings enter duty-free; United Kingdom: 5% import VAT on art). Card payments are accepted up to €10,000; larger amounts by bank transfer.
Yes. This lot is catalogued under the artist’s name without qualification, so it carries our Five-Year Authenticity Guarantee under Section 4 of the Conditions of Sale: if the authorship proves materially incorrect, you may return the work within five years for a refund of the purchase price. The guarantee concerns authorship; provenance, dating, condition and value are described to the best of our knowledge and are not guaranteed.
A condition report with ultraviolet photographs is prepared on request, normally within two working days; the condition summary on this page is examined in-house and is not a conservator’s report. Further photographs of any detail, the reverse or the frame are sent on request. The work can be examined in our Barcelona showroom by appointment before the sale, and you are welcome to send your own conservator or specialist.
Jean Rambinintsoa was born in Madagascar in 1899 and began to paint as a boy. He completed his training in Paris, where he encountered Impressionism, Fauvism and Cubism at first hand, and returned to the island to teach drawing and plastic arts before devoting himself entirely to painting.
With Ramanankamonjy, Ramiandrasoa and Rakoto Ratsimamanga he belongs to the first generation of modern Malagasy painters, whose work is now being rediscovered in France and Madagascar.
Rambinintsoa’s subject was daily life in Madagascar: the flower market of Analakely in Antananarivo under its white parasols, the jacarandas of the highlands, the Mandraka river, rice fields and village roads, painted from the 1930s to the 1960s in an Impressionist touch and a warm palette of terracotta, ochre and blue.
His paintings, signed and usually dated, appear regularly at auction in France and are held in Malagasy and French collections. He died in 1986.
Jean Rambinintsoa (1899–1986), the leading painter of modern Madagascar: his Paris training, the Analakely flower market under white parasols, and the 1963 canvas offered at Aurora & Athena.
Highlights of the Aurora & Athena autumn sale on 17 October 2026: Bridget Tichenor, Nicholas Roerich, Konstantin Korovin, Gerard Sekoto, Jan Zrzavý, Pan Yuliang, a Miró lithograph and the painters of the École de Paris.
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