Paul Émile CHABAS (1869-1937)

Lot 18
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Estimation :
300 - 500 EUR
Paul Émile CHABAS (1869-1937)
The Mazerolles plain, on the Erdre river, near Nantes. Before 1894. Oil on canvas 14.5 x 31.3 cm. Located and monogrammed, bottom right: Jaille PC Provenance : - Offered by the artist to the family Lelièvre de la Touche, - Then by descent Native of Nantes, where his respectable family is established in trade since the late eighteenth century, Paul Chabas studied at the Julian Academy in Paris, under the magisterium of Bouguereau and Robert-Fleury. A regular visitor to the Salon from 1885 onwards, he exhibited honourable bourgeois portraits, but he was especially distinguished by his dreamlike compositions, in which young women in bathing suits (or Eve's) playfully play with delicate water games, bathed in auroral or twilight lights (fig.1). Characteristic work of his production: "Joyeux ébats" (Musée d'Art de Nantes, inv.824) earned him the national prize at the 1899 Salon (fig.2). Also known as "Les Baigneuses", the work was produced in a workshop in the park of the manor house of La Guillonière, on the banks of the Erdre, made available by his friend from Nantes, Lelièvre de la Touche, owner of a vast estate that also included the neighbouring manor house of Le Jaille. The place was to receive all the favours of the artist since it is known that in 1894, acquired the manor of the Chataigneraie, a few kilometres away. Our small landscape (the only autonomous one we know of), executed with quick thick strokes, thanks to which one can perceive pinkish accents in this grey-blue autumn evening sky, was offered to the Lelièvre de la Touche family, during one of Chabas' friendly stays in Jaille. One perceives, in condensed form, under his dirty varnish, all his writing of atmospheric light effects, reflections on the water, mists, which can be found in his most famous painting, with its original story. Exhibited at the 1912 Salon, "September Morning" (New York, The Metropolitan Museum, inv. 57.89), as soon as the event was over
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