Atelier de l'artiste

Collection Achille Chatenet, son beau-fils

Collection Samuel Josefowitz (1921-2015), Lausanne

Vente Paris, Christie's, 23 mai 2007, lot 79

Vente Versailles, Me Pillon, 1er juillet 2007, lot 59 

Collection particulière, Paris

Galerie Didier Aaron & cie, Paris 

Acquis auprès de cette dernière par l'actuel propriétaire le 16 octobre 2023

Collection Louis Grandchamp des Raux

Pont-Aven, Musée de Pont-Aven, Henry Moret, aquarelles et peintures 1856-1913, juin-septembre 1988, n°91, reproduit en couleur p. 79

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°91, reproduit en couleur p.123

Künzelsau, Museum Würth, Gauguin und die Schule von Pont-Aven, mars-juin 1997, n°91, reproduit p. 237

Munich, Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Gauguin und die Schule von Pont-Aven, août-novembre 1998, n°99, reproduit p.158

It was ultimately the sale of the remaining works from Henry Moret's atelier that allowed for the documentation of his creative process. The invaluable testimony of his friend, the writer Henry Eon, suggested the existence of preparatory watercolours, which had hitherto remained unknown: “He worked constantly outdoors, accumulating sketches and studies”. These works on paper, never intended for the market, were all kept in the artist’s studio. This ensemble, belonging to the artist’s stepson, Achille Chatenet, bringing together roughly eight hundred drawings, watercolours and pastels, were part of a first sale in 1972. A certain number were sold at Hôtel Drouot on 21 October 1983, five hundred and forty eight works at this auction. These studies, some of which were exhibited in Pont-Aven in 1988 – including the present drawing – shed an essential light on Moret’s way of working: they show how he would go from a watercolour executed from life to a composition in oil on canvas. In this watercolour, Moret captures a Brittany landscape before him where houses emerge from the middle of a landscape animated by poplar trees. The spontaneity and freedom of watercolour as a medium was instrumental in the creation of this vibrant composition, with its simplified lines and luminous colours, which elicit emotion and poetic reverie. Dated circa 1896, this watercolour perfectly transcribes the stylistic fusion of Moret that lies between the impressionist touch found in the grass in the foreground combined with a simplification of forms and a bolder chromatic scheme that is close to Synthetism.