From Courbet’s Jura to Marquet’s Tunis, via Lavandou, Paintings from a Saint-Etienne Collection

Works signed by Courbet, Marquet or Rysselberghe, the paintings from a collection from Saint-Etienne will delight lovers of 19th-century and modern painting. This first rate collection focuses on landscapes and still lifes, themes conducive to working with matter and color.

Eight paintings in one sale. A small but emblematic selection from the collection of an art lover from Saint-Etienne, in southern France, who passed away a few years ago. An entrepreneur, he assembled a large number of works between 1960 and 1980, acquired mainly from dealers and gallery owners. His collection was originally much more comprehensive than these eight 19th-century and modern works. “It belonged to collectors of a very particular era, who were ‘classical’ in their furnishings and who bought both the Old Masters and modern paintings,” explains curator Agnès Carlier, who has already sold period furniture from the same provenance and other paintings, including the Portrait de Catherine Begon de Montfermeil by Nicolas de Largillierre, which sold for €136,250 on May 23, 2024. These paintings remained for some fifty years in the home of this enthusiast, who “did not collect according to a theme, but according to his pleasure”, explains expert Michel Maket. The vagaries of life also played their part, such as the acquisition of his second home in the Jura, not far from Ornans and Gustave Courbet‘s beloved ‘Source de la Loue.’ The purchase of this Jura landscape was an obvious choice for the collector. This painting has been authenticated by the Comité Courbet, and appears in Robert Fernier’s catalog raisonné of the artist’s work, La Vie et l’œuvre de Gustave Courbet (Bibliothèque des arts, 1977-1978), reproduced as no. 1000, pages 216 and 217. Another guarantee of authenticity is that the title is not written in italics, but in Roman capitals, “which indicates that Fernier physically saw the painting”, notes Michel Maket. It was acquired by our entrepreneur at the Palais Galliera in Paris on December 1, 1969, at a sale led by Mes Rheims and Laurin, with Mr. Dubourg and Mr. Durand-Ruel as experts. Although not precisely located in the catalog raisonné, this landscape could represent the Loue, the river that rises in the Doubs and flows through Ornans. It was one of Courbet’s favorite themes from 1864 forward. Although living in Paris at the time, Courbet regularly returned to his native region. But when he painted this canvas, around 1875, he had been in exile in Switzerland for two years. He therefore worked from memory, transcribing these views of the Jura he would never see again. In the end, landscapes accounted for two-thirds of his output. During the last fifteen years of his life, Courbet received an increasing number of commissions in this genre. Somewhere between Flemish tradition and French realism, he would flesh out these scenes with dark backgrounds to which he would add light tones revealing important details, such as the golden, scratched rock of Jura’s cliffs or the swirls of water, using touches of white applied with a knife or his fingers to create relief and movement. The painter felt that this ever-changing nature was self-sufficient. There was no need for human figures. A message that was echoed in the work of the Impressionists.

Théo Van Rysselberghe, Albert Marquet… An inexhaustible source of inspiration, the sea has been the subject of many an artist’s work.

A Transition to Color with Théo Van Rysselberghe and Marquet

A shift occurs with the other paintings in this group, in which modernity asserts itself through the expressiveness of color, each using it in his or her own way. The painter of poetic reality Christian Caillard applies it to his landscapes, as in Hameau breton from 1978, expected at €800/1,000, as does Dunoyer de Segonzac, whose canvas painted around 1924 Église de Villiers-sur-Morin is announced at €1,500/2,500. Bernard Lorjou, a painter devoted to figuration, will offer a saturated-palette Personnage for €1,000/1,200. These artists share their Fauve past, and their works illustrate the evolution of each. This mutation is clearly visible in two paintings by Charles Camoin: “Compotier de fruits et flasque de chianti, dated c. 1910, features simplified forms. The background colors tend towards monochromy in a Cézanne atmosphere,” explains Michel Maket. Conversely, Nature morte à la nappe aux carreaux bleus (Still Life with Blue-Checked Tablecloth), from 1926, is a mature work, in which the elements have substance, presence and more shimmering, palpable colors.” €8,000/12,000 for each of the two. The theme remains the same with the work of Belgian Théo Van Rysselberghe. He was close to Seurat and Signac from 1888, before moving towards a powerful palette from 1908, which owes much to the work of Matisse and Marquet. In 1910, he moved to Saint-Clair in Le Lavandou, not far from his friend Henri-Edmond Cross and his brother Octave – the architect who built Signac’s house in Saint-Tropez. The painting Rascasse et rougets dates to 1912. Rysselberghe frees his painting from the systematism of the neo-impressionist manner, indulging in a broader brushstroke and creating forms with a relief brimming with naturalness. An inexhaustible source of inspiration, the sea has been the subject of many artists, including Albert Marquet, who spent his childhood in Bordeaux watching the boats in the harbor. In his 1926 canvas Le Canal et le quartier sicilien, le port de la Goulette, we find ourselves in Tunis: a city the painter had discovered three years earlier on his honeymoon with Marcelle Martinet, whom he had met in Algiers in 1920. For more than twenty years, every winter, they took up residence in Algeria, but between February and May 1926, they settled in Tunis in a house on the beach overlooking the gulf, in an area populated by fishermen from Sicily, where boats served as a means of transport for the locals. For more than twenty years, every winter, the couple took up residence in Algeria, but between February and May 1926, they settled in Tunis in a house on the beach in front of the gulf, in an area populated by fishermen from Sicily, where boats served as a means of transport for the locals. For once, the painter has placed himself at their level, on the quay, abandoning his traditional plunging views. Here, he is interested in the people and atmosphere of the place, but also in the reflections of the water, accentuated by stronger-than-usual colors, and the saturated light of North Africa. “A light that constructs his paintings and simplifies volumes, bringing out the great oblique lines that energize the horizontal plane of sky and sea,” insists Mr. Maket. A journey not to be missed!

19th-century and modern paintings

Thursday 10 April 2025 – 14:00 (CEST) – Live

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