Albert Marquet

Galeria Müller, Buenos Aires
Sale: Sotheby's, New York, November 8, 2001, lot 173
Private Collection (acquired at the above sale)
Sale: Christie's, London, February 7, 2006, lot 254
Private Collection, Switzerland

Very good condition. Canvas is lined. A few small breaks along the extreme edge of canvas beyond the pigment layer. A few very fine cracks in the thicker pigment of the foreground, especially lower-left. Under UV one small spot of inpainting below and right of the two sailors at the center and several small spots in the green pigment at the left edge. Otherwise fine.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

In 1936, the year he painted Bateaux de guerre sur le basin, Venise, Marquet spent the summer in Venice with his family. Marcelle Marquet, the artist’s wife, recalled her husband's working methods during their stay describing how Marquet attempted to avoid tourists and the intense summer heat (Marcelle Marquet, Venise, Paris, 1953, p.9). The resulting Venetian views, in which Marquet successfully places himself in the great tradition of Canaletto, Guardi, Turner and Monet, are amongst the most eloquent of the artist's mature works, combining several of his preoccupations—the sea, boats and magnificent architecture—all within a single, highly finished composition.

In his description of Marquet's fascination with seaports, François Daulte noted that the artist had "An incomparable instinct...to reduce a landscape to its essential factors, separating the horizontal lines from the vertical. These lines he used to depict perspective, and to convey dimension. He always considered that the representation of space remained the principal element in the composition of a painting" (Marquet (exhibition catalogue), Knoedler Gallery, New York, 1964, pp. 4 & 5). David Setford commented on Marquet’s depictions of atmosphere: “’There is no doubt’ wrote Raymond Cogniat in 1972, ‘that Marquet, like the Impressionists, sought to understand the visual subtleties of atmosphere and to capture them on canvas.’ But Cogniat develops the theme: ‘Instead of using the Impressionists’ technique of an infinity of disparate brush strokes which dissolve forms, Marquet employs broad strokes which preserve the unity and larger rhythm of the landscape. In his work, sky and water are not shimmering, but have a material reality while remaining light and transparent; this space is given an almost palpable existence…’ Yet despite the difference in execution, which renders details to a minimum, and certainly reflects a post-Whistlerian modernist aesthetic, there is a spirit which is shared with the great Impressionist masterpieces. As one critic wrote in 1912: ‘…Mr. Marquet knows, with that ocular precision which characterizes him, how to condense the lesson of impressionism and to achieve in a personal conception, a work deserving to be hung next to the Cathedrals of Monet’” (David F. Setford, “Albert Marquet: from Fauvism to Impressionism?” From Fauvism to Impressionism: Albert Marquet, an Exhibition from the Centre Pompidou in Paris (exhibition catalogue), Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia, South Carolina (and travelled to other locations), 2001-03, p. 7).