# Alfred Stevens artist context and auction value notes

Canonical page: https://appraisily.com/artist/alfred-stevens/
Profile generated: 2026-05-09T17:56:30.000Z
Quality: high confidence, strong sources

## Artist identity

- Birth date: 1823-05-11
- Death date: 1906-08-24
- Nationality: Belgian
- Movements: Realism
- Common media: oil painting, lithography

## About Alfred Stevens

Alfred Stevens (1823–1906) was a Belgian painter celebrated for his meticulously rendered scenes of elegant women in fashionable Parisian interiors. Born in Brussels and active in Paris for most of his career, Stevens first gained attention with a socially conscious painting of destitute vagrants before pivoting to the refined depictions of upper-middle-class life that made him one of the most successful artists of the Second French Empire. His realistic style and precise finish reflect the influence of 17th-century Dutch genre masters such as Gerard ter Borch. Stevens exhibited widely at the Paris Salon, received numerous honors, and was appointed a court painter. His brother J.E. Stevens was also active in the arts. With nearly five hundred works tracked through auction channels, Stevens remains a recognizable figure in the 19th-century European painting market.

## Common works and media

Stevens is most frequently encountered in appraisal and auction contexts as an oil-on-canvas painter of half- or three-quarter-length female figures in richly detailed domestic interiors. Common subjects include women reading, writing letters, arranging flowers, or posed in elaborate dress. Less often, his early-career social-realist scenes and landscape-influenced compositions appear. Lithographs and works on paper by Stevens are also known but are far less common at auction than his oil paintings.

## Market and appraisal context

Alfred Stevens' paintings appear regularly at major auction houses, with oil-on-canvas scenes of fashionable women being the most commonly offered category. Value depends heavily on size, condition, provenance, and the degree of finish — large salon-scale compositions with documented exhibition histories attract the strongest interest. Some later works involved studio assistance, so attribution should be confirmed by a specialist. Collectors should also note the existence of early social-realist subjects, which represent a smaller but distinct segment of his market. Comparable public auction records, sale dates, and realized prices are essential reference points for any appraisal.

## Appraisily data basis

Appraisily artist pages combine artist identity research from authority files and public scholarship with auction records, auction-house context, sale dates, realized prices, and comparable lots when those records are available. For Alfred Stevens, identity data is grounded in the Getty ULAN authority, the Library of Congress Name Authority File, the RKD Netherlands Institute for Art History, and VIAF.

## Sources

- RKD — Netherlands Institute for Art History: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/artists/75150
- Library of Congress: https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n87896129
- VIAF (OCLC): https://viaf.org/viaf/10025104/
- Getty Vocabulary Program: https://vocab.getty.edu/page/ulan/500000844
- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q773855
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Stevens_(painter)