HENRI LE SIDANER | Le Palais ducal

Galeries Georges Petit, Paris
Brasler Company, Milwaukee
George Rinehart Gallery, Milwaukee
Edward Burgess Butler (acquired from the above)
The Caldwell Gallery, New York (and sold: Sotheby's, New York, November 14, 1990, lot 413)
Acquired at the above sale

Paris, Salon de la société des Beaux-Arts, 1906, no. 777

Camille Mauclair, Henri Le Sidaner, Paris, 1928, illustrated pl. 6
Yann Farinaux-Le Sidaner, Le Sidaner, L'Oeuvre peint et gravé, Paris, 1989, no. 213, illustrated p. 107
Yann Farinaux-Le Sidaner, Henri Le Sidaner, Paysages intimes, Saint-Rémy-en-l'Eau, 2013, n.n., illustrated in color p. 85

This work is in excellent condition. The canvas is unlined. There is some extremely stable, fine and minor craquelure in the upper right quadrant. There is a pindot loss to the pigment along the lower edge, one at lower right and one at lower left. Under UV light: there are a few possible strokes of inpainting along all four edges, possibly to address frame abrasion, but a varnish makes it difficult to read through. Otherwise, fine.
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.

The first generation of Impressionist painters was highly influential to Le Sidaner, whose formative years occurred amidst the height of the Impressionist movement. At the age of twenty in 1882, Le Sidaner visited the seventh Impressionist Exhibition and became fascinated by the work of Claude Monet. Two years later his enthusiasm for the Impressionist style intensified after attending a retrospective exhibition of Édouard Manet. Le Sidaner’s work parallels that of Monet in terms of style as well as choice of motif; both artists would reiterate the same subject matter in all seasons and during all times of day in order to isolate the variations of light (see fig. 1). The Impressionist technique of using short, fragmented brushstrokes and intensified colors was particularly suited to Le Sidaner’s desire to capture the nuances of natural light. Jacques Baschet wrote of Le Sidaner’s style in his newspaper, L’Illustration in 1924: “He is a pointillist, but not the kind who decomposes tones and applies them unmixed, thereby letting our eyes reconstitute the colors on our retina. His palette is extremely varied and subtle. The oils bind and melt together in highly delicate harmonies. Nor is he the kind to enclose forms within a heavy brushstroke, as is the practice among the younger school of painters. With him, contours seem to emerge from the interplay of light, and in this respect, he is similar to Claude Monet” (quoted in Yann Farinaux-Le Sidaner, op. cit., p. 37). His creative process is further revealed through a charming anecdote from the artist’s son, Rémy: “My father would give me his usual sign and we would stop still whilst he scrutinised the horizon, committing what he saw to memory...he often made a colour sketch of the site, but this had nothing to do with the effect, which would later be committed to canvas in his studio from memory alone; they were too fleeting and too changeable to be painted on the spot” (Rémy Le Sidaner, “Le Peintre Henri Le Sidaner tel que j’ai connu” in Henri le Sidaner (exhibition catalogue), Musée Marmotton, Paris, 1989, p. 11).

The present work is striking for its glistening and jewel-like palette but above all for being exemplary of the artist’s much-fêted ability to capture the intangible and mystical atmosphere of a particular moment in time. He was not a painter of people  but a painter of the nuances of place and of time: “He considered that the silent harmony of things is enough to evoke the presence of those who live among them. Indeed such presences are felt throughout his works. Deserted they may be, but never empty” (Camille Mauclair, op. cit., p. 12).