Collection Maurice Savin, Paris

François Zunini, Chilly-Mazarin

Collection Samuel Josefowitz, Lausanne (1979), puis par descendance 

Vente Paris, Christie’s, 31 mars 2016, lot 117 

Eric Gillis Fine Art, Bruxelles

Acquis auprès de cette dernière par l'actuel propriétaire le 10 mars 2017

Collection Louis Grandchamp des Raux

Tokyo, Bunkamura Museum of Art, Kyoto, National Museum of Modern Art, Gauguin et l'École de Pont-Aven, avril-novembre 1993, n°26, reproduit p. 47

Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Gauguin and the Pont-Aven School, mai – juillet 1994, n° 84, reproduit p.143

Indianapolis, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Baltimore, The Walters Art Gallery, Montreal, Museum of Fine Arts, Memphis, The Dixon Gallery and Gardens, San Diego, San Diego Museum of Art, Gauguin and the School of Pont-Aven, septembre 1994 - septembre 1996, n° 84, reproduit p.116

Paris, Musée du Luxembourg, Quimper, Musée des Beaux-Arts, L'Aventure de Pont-Aven et Gauguin, avril–septembre 2003, n° 58 p.186, reproduit en couleur p.187

Maastricht, TEFAF, Eric Gillis Fine Art, 2017, reproduit p.456

Charlottenlund, Museum Odrupgaard, Gauguin og hans venner, janvier - mai 2022, n°14 p.44, reproduit en couleur p.45

Gauguin und die Schule von Pont-Aven, catalogue d'exposition, Künzelsau, Museum Würth, mars-juin 1997, n°84 p.222, reproduit en noir et blanc p.223

Gauguin un die Schule von Pont-Aven, catalogue d'exposition, Künzelsau, Museum Würth, mars-juin 1997, n°84 p.222, reproduit en noir et blanc p.223

A. Ellridge, Gauguin et les Nabis, Terrail, Paris, 2001, reproduit en couleur p. 44

B. Frelaut, La Merveilleuse Bretagne des Peintres, Naef, Genève, 2005, reproduit p. 95 

Eric Gillis Fine art, 1785-1919. Paintings, Drawings & Sculpture, catalogue d'exposition n°19, Bruxelles, octobre 2017, n°4 p. 62-63, reproduit en couleur p. 63

Charles Laval, inseparable companion of Paul Gauguin, had a brief career that was interrupted by his untimely death.

His known works, for now very limited, are all the more precious. Barely ten or so works from his Breton period have survived to this day.

This watercolour is thus a rare and valuable record of the artist’s stay in Pont-Aven, at a time when his art was developing in close relation to that of Paul Gauguin. Two young Breton women, dressed in traditional regional costume, are resting or asleep. One is lying on the grass, her face turned towards the ground, her bare feet close together. The other, seated with her back to the viewer, hides her face with her right hand. Her demeanour, somewhere between sleep and sorrow, leaves the viewer free to interpret the scene.

There is no horizon line and the gentleness of the atmosphere is suggested solely by light touches of pastel green and yellow, and by the curved lines with defined contours that form a verdant setting. The sleeping girls, in their pose and in the sensitivity of the artist’s treatment, recall theexperiments of Degas (ill. 1) and the innovative features of works by Millet.

As for the seated girl, she seems to convey not so much a deep melancholy as a simple weariness born of working in the fields, much like that depicted by Gauguin in his “Misères Humaines”, 1888, Ordrupgaard, Charlottenlund (ill. 2). Few works and sparse chronology make it difficult to trace Charles Laval’s career with any precision, but we know that he was engaged in 1891 to Madeleine, the sister of Émile Bernard (ill. 3), that he became increasingly unwell and that he

died of tuberculosis in Paris in 1894. This watercolour is a rare testimony to this artist, who died in his prime and yet played such a decisive role in the emergence of Synthetism.

Fig. 1 : Edgar Degas, Repasseuses, circa 1984-1986, huile sur toile, musée d’Orsay, Paris

Fig. 2 : Paul Gauguin, Vendanges à Arles ou Misères humaines, 1888, huile sur toile, Ordrupgaard, Charlottenlund

Fig. 3 : Paul Gauguin, Portrait de Madeleine Bernard, 1888, huile sur toile, Musée de Grenoble, Grenoble