Jean Rambinintsoa and the Flower Market of Antananarivo

Under a canopy of white parasols, flower sellers stand behind buckets of orange, red and mauve blooms: anyone who has walked through Antananarivo knows the scene, and in Malagasy painting it belongs to one artist above all. Jean Rambinintsoa (1899–1986) was the leading painter of Madagascar’s first modern generation, and his 1963 flower market is in our Modern Masters: 20th Century Art sale.

A Malagasy painter trained in Paris

Rambinintsoa was born in Madagascar in 1899 and began to paint as a boy. He completed his training in Paris, where he met Impressionism, Fauvism and Cubism at first hand, then 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 generation that gave Madagascar a modern painting of its own — long collected locally and by French families with ties to the island, and only now being rediscovered more widely.

The markets of Analakely

His subject was daily life in Madagascar: the flower market of Analakely in the capital under its white parasols, the jacarandas of the highlands, the Mandraka river, rice fields and village roads, painted from the 1930s to the 1960s with an Impressionist touch and a warm, distinctly Malagasy palette of terracotta, ochre and sky-blue. The canvas in our sale, signed and dated 1963, is the classic composition: parasols against cumulus cloud, figures in blue moving among the stalls, baskets overflowing with flowers.

The market for Malagasy painting

Rambinintsoa’s paintings, signed and usually dated, appear regularly at auction in France, where the interest in the painters of Madagascar has grown steadily over the last decade, and are held in Malagasy and French collections. The market scenes are the works collectors look for first. More on his artist page.

At Aurora & Athena

Flower Market under Parasols, Antananarivo, 1963, oil on canvas, framed, comes from a Spanish private collection and is offered on 17 October 2026 with an estimate of 400 – 600 €. Photographs, condition summary and bidding on the lot page.