JACQUES-EMILE BLANCHE (FRENCH 1861-1942)STILL LIFE WITH A LOBSTER ON A SILVER PLATTEROil on canvas, unframedSigned and inscribed `à Me. Langweil' 52.5 x 75.5cm (20½ x 29½ in.)Included in the online catalogue raisonné by Jane Roberts and Muriel Molines, no. RM 1305, Nature morte à langouste sur un plat d'argentProvenance:Sale, Bonhams, 18 March 2014, lot 136An eminent dealer in Oriental antiques, Madame Florine Langweil (1861-1958), born Florine Ebstein, came to Paris in 1881 to work for a cousin who ran a pastry shop in the rue Montholon. There she met and married the affluent Charles Langweil (1843-1920), a middle-aged Austrian who proceeded to abandon her in 1894 without resources and with two small children to bring up. Madame Langweil, with no formal training in art, threw herself into the highly specialized field of Oriental art, in which she became a great expert and ran a very successful business. In her gallery at 26 place Saint-Georges, which she opened in 1903, she built up a vast stock of objects of which she was justifiably proud and which attracted customers from all over the world. In 1905, her eldest daughter Berthe (1886-1971), became a pupil of Blanche in Auteuil.