Ludovic Alleaume

Paris, Salon, 1896, no. 15
Paris, Salon d'hiver, 1912. no. 5749

Mab-Yann, "À la campagne,"  Le Magasin Pittoresque, vol. 14, no. 2, August 1, 1896, p. 241, illustrated p. 242

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This work is in remarkable condition. The canvas is unlined. It has never been removed from its original stretcher. It may have been recently varnished. There are no reinforcements on the reverse and there do not appear to be any retouches. The varnish is slightly uneven, but the work is certainly very attractive in its current condition.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

While relatively overlooked in the lexicon of  nineteenth century French painters,  Ludovic Alleaume will soon be the subject of a monographic exhibition at the Musée du Vieux-Château in Laval, France (October 18, 2014-April 19, 2015).  As a young artist, Alleaume was very interested in drawing; he later turned this aptitude into designing cartoons for stained glass windows in both civic and sacred buildings in and around Laval, a town located 200 miles southwest of Paris.  Like many artists from the provinces, Alleaume was drawn to Paris to train at the École des Beaux Arts.  He made his Salon debut in 1883, and continued to exhibit in Paris throughout his career, while also spending time in his native Laval. He also made two trips to Palestine in 1888 and 1890. 

À la Campagne was Alleaume’s 1896 Salon entry.  Its most direct antecedent, not only in subject, but especially in showing a similar subject on a grand, “Salon style” scale is Claude Monet’s 1866 Femmes au jardin (fig. 1).  While Alleaume would have been too young to have known Monet’s painting when it was painted in 1866 and rejected by the Salon jury that year, he might have seen it later.  Monet had consigned it to Durand Ruel for five years beginning in 1882, and Alleaume was working in Paris during this period.

Like Monet’s Femmes au jardin, Alleaume’s figures are painted en plein air.  It seems unlikely that the sunshine filtering through the translucent red parasol and casting its rays on the silhouettes of the two models was a creation made in the studio; the effect is too convincingly realistic.  Also realistic is the landscape, a field of summer flowers — poppies, buttercups, dandelions, yellow daisies,  Queen Anne’s lace and  pink clover — providing the perfect setting in which to enjoy the pleasures of a leisurely summer afternoon in the country.  One Salon critic, writing for Le Magasin Pittoresque, even commented that the painting was so realistic that the viewer could feel the hot summer heat, and hear the “buzz” of the insects around the flowers (as translated from the French, Mab-Yann, p. 241).  But, the centerpiece of the painting is clearly the fashion.  While the delicate, floral patterned dress mirrors the surrounding wild-flowers, the greatest fashion statement is made by the tartan plaid.  Mab-Yann, in his Salon review, made mention of the costume by commenting that such a daring fashion statement depicted in a Salon painting would have caused an outrage in earlier times (Mab-Yann, p. 242). 

During this period, French women on summer holiday dressed in lighter fabrics, brighter colors and straw hats, thus adding to the more relaxed atmosphere of leisure activity. The plaid dress in our painting is most likely made of tarlatan, a thin muslin fabric that when starched would showcase the folds of the garment by retaining its shape in hot and humid weather.  Silk was more appropriate for daytime attire and formal wear associated with city life.

With the rise of Parisian fashion emporiums, aka department stores, such as Le Bon Marché, Printemps and La Samaritaine, the latest sartorial trends of the famous couture houses,  Worth and Paquin, could be recreated and more widely distributed.  Even Émile Zola observed that the women who worked in Parisian stores could now dress in the same style and fashion as their middle-class customers (Emile Zola, The Ladies Delight (Au Bonheur des Dames; 1883), trans. Robin Buss, London, 2001, p. 152)  One may speculate, that the two young women in our painting first saw their dresses as fashion plates in the popular life-style magazine, Le Mode Illustré,  prompting them to visit Le Bon Marché, where “under a single roof and in just one afternoon…[they] could select a pattern from a catalogue of the latest fashions; consult with a draper; choose the trims, from buttons to lace; have [their] measurements taken and [their] order placed; and then select accessories – gloves, hats, parasols, stockings, shawls – to complete [their] new ensemble.  Shopping had never been so easy or so attractive” (Debra N. Mancoff, Fashion in Impressionist Paris,  London, 2012, p. 78).