Henri Le Sidaner

Sale: Christie's, London, June 28, 1988, lot 157
Sale: Christie's, New York, May 9, 2000, lot 159
Private Collection
Acquired from the above

Paris, Galeries Georges Petit, Société nouvelle, 1909, no. 81

Yann Farinaux-Le Sidaner, Le Sidaner, L'Oeuvre peint et gravé, Paris, 1989, no. 257, illustrated p. 119

The canvas is unlined and on the original stretcher. The surface is clean and richly textured. Pigments are bright and fresh. Stable hairline craquelure is visible in areas of thickest impasto, notably to the windows. There is a small dot of paint loss in the white pigment of door at center. Under UV light: there is a thin varnish and some original pigments fluoresce. Nevertheless small strokes of retouching are visible to address spots of loss along faint vertical stretcher bar marks running vertically and horizontally at center and center right. Otherwise, fine. This work is in overall very good condition.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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.

Encouraged by Auguste Rodin, Le Sidner first visited the village of Gerberoy in the spring of 1901 and eventually purchased a property there in 1904. It was in Gerberoy that the artist created an extraordinary garden which provided him with an endless source of inspiration and a wealth of new subject matter, as seen in works such as Les Soleils. The grounds of his home were incredibly important for the artist from when first he settled in the area and he was “seized with a burning ambition…to plan a garden of his own in which the landscape would be designed by him personally and in which he could achieve his favorite light effects” (Yann Farinaux-Le Sidaner, Le Sidaner, L’Oeuvre peint et gravé, Paris, 1989, p. 14).

Le Sidaner's motivation for a garden of his own was strongly inspired by Claude Monet and his famed garden at Giverny. The artist had long been an admirer of Monet, whose work he first saw at the age of twenty when he visited the Seventh Impressionist Exhibition in Paris in 1882. Evident in the present work, Monet's influence on the work of the younger artist is unmistakable, as Karin Sagner writes: “parallels to the Impressionism of Claude Monet can actually be found not only in Le Sidaner's style of painting, but also in his choice of motifs… close-up views of peaceful garden corners, facades of buildings… both artists deliberately used light to effect  a dissolution of solid form and of precise figurative representation” (Karin Sagner, Henri Le Sidaner, A Magical Impressionist, Chemnitz, 2009, p. 34).