Study of a plant with pink flowers in a meadow

Little is known about Jean-Michel’s artistic activities. The Belgian painter was a lawyer by profession and the son and pupil of the Neoclassical painter Cornelis Cels, director of the Académie de Tournai. It was Cornelis who introduced his son to sketching in oil. A number of drawings and oil sketches on paper by Jean-Michel Cels entered the art market in London in 1997, including the present one. This work, dated 1840, was presumably executed in the outskirts of Brussels.