Henri Eugène Augustin Le Sidaner (French 1862-1939)
Les Toits, Gerberoy, August 1936
£7,560
Auction: 27 April 2023 from 18:00 BST
Description
signed (lower left)
charcoal and pastel, enhanced with oil, on paper
Dimensions
26.5cm x 33.5cm (10 1/2in x 13 1/4in)
Provenance
Provenance
Louis Le Sidaner, Paris
Roland, Browse and Delbanco, London
Ewan Mundy Fine Art, Glasgow & London, where acquired by the present owner
Exhibited
Musée Galliéra, Paris, Rétrospective Henri Le Sidaner, n°82, April 1948;
Roland, Browse and Delbanco, London, Henri Le Sidaner-Lui Sbou Kwan, n°54, February- March 1964.
This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity issued by Yann Farinaux-Le Sidaner, March 2023
Footnote
Throughout the 38 years spent at Gerberoy, Le Sidaner never ceased inviting friends from around the world to visit his gardens. The last stage of the walk around the gardens was always the little terrace that overlooked the property, which he had erected at the foot of a church, from which point there was a breathtaking view of the old rooftops of Gerberoy. The artist adored the diversity and personality of these old houses with their threadbare roofs so typical of Picardy. In 1904, having decided to transform a large old building in his yard to make it into his studio, so he exchanged new tiles with the villagers, "The artist really surprised people”, reported the critic Camille Mauclair, “by asking them for old tiles eaten away with moss and offering them the exchange with beautiful, brand new, very red tiles.”
Few artists have been able to express all the charm and poetry of the ridgeline of our old buildings like him. Around 1936, the “pilgrim of old France”, as Mauclair called him, dedicated his final series to Gerborean roofs, of which La Petite ville, jewel of the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, remains the highlight. Our enhanced drawing served as a preparatory study for the canvas, Les Toits ensoleillés, painted the same year. As is often the case, the artist did not hesitate to disguise reality in order to obtain the desired impression, which here becomes the disorder of a sunny vision.
Yann Farinaux-Le Sidaner, March 2023 (translated by Matthew Yeats)