Lot n° 96
Estimation :
20000 - 30000
EUR
Result without fees
Result
: 55 000EUR
Jean DUPAS (1882-1964)
Preparatory drawing... - Lot 96 - Briscadieu
Jean DUPAS (1882-1964)
Preparatory drawing for The vine and the wine
Charcoal drawing and estompe with checkering, signed and dated lower right "1925". Mounted on a frame.
105 x 285 cm.
(Accidents and missing parts).
20 000/30 000 €
To the glory of Bordeaux
On the occasion of the famous 1925 International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts, the city of Bordeaux was installed in one of the four towers reserved for French wines built by the architect Charles Plumet.
The interior decoration of the Pavillon de Bordeaux was entrusted to Pierre Ferret, an architect from Bordeaux who designed the Hôtel Frugès. This ambitious project was intended to be "of a high standard and of great nobility" in his own words.
Four Bordeaux painters, Jean Dupas, François-Maurice Roganeau, Jean Despujols, all three of whom won the Prix de Rome, and Marius de Buzon participated in the decoration of the pavilion by creating huge allegorical compositions measuring 300 x 800 cm, symbolizing the main economic resources of Bordeaux and Aquitaine.
In the center of the hall of the Bordeaux tower, the Parisian sculptor Alfred Janniot, close to Jean Dupas, created a spectacular polychrome sculpture evoking the vine. The theme of the Landes Forest was given to François-Maurice Roganeau, the Colonies to Marius de Buzon, Agriculture to Jean Despujols and the Vine and Wine to Jean Dupas.
In 1926, the Bordeaux City Council decided to acquire the four paintings to be displayed on the walls of the amphitheater of the Bordeaux Municipal Athenaeum until 1973, when, after restoration, they were put on permanent display in the Musée d'Aquitaine.
This esoteric composition, painted in a shade of gray and punctuated by a series of powerful allegories, revisits the canons of feminine beauty in a personal way. In singular postures, the bodies lengthen and deform, the necks stretch under the influence of the Italian mannerists discovered during his travels in Rome at the beginning of the century. In turn, from left to right, the artist evokes joy, strength, spirit, the call, wine, men, the invitation, the harvest, the witch preparing the fire for the still, the divine liquor and finally the alcohol.
"Ingres, Cranach, Jean Goujon and so many others have modeled the female body, so soft, so tender, so docile to marry the artist's whim. Infinitely long and fragile, the nymphs of Dupas are reminiscent of lilies in sprays, irises in mother-of-pearl; sinuous, with the grace of an alkyon, the slightly contorted folds of their bodies where dimples laugh, the reflections of shells in their barely pink pulp, with pretty pointed faces loaded with curls whose tendrils roll up like shavings. George Barbier, Jean Dupas, La Renaissance de l'Art Français et des Industries de Luxe, Paris, September 1927.
Alexis Maréchal
The preparatory drawing that we are presenting in this sale is a very accomplished work, just before the execution of the painting, faithful in every respect to the painting kept in the Musée d'Aquitaine.
Provenance: this drawing decorated the Villa Herrera in Biarritz.
This rectangular Art Deco building, built around 1925, bears the name of its first owner, the Chilean Jorge Oscar Herrera, king of the guano and cigar manufacturer in his country.
Bibliography:
- George Barbier: Jean Dupas, La Renaissance de l'Art Français et des Industries de Luxe, Paris, September 1927, the painting the vine and the wine reproduced pages 430 and 431.
- J. and B. Guerin: Des hommes et des activités autour d'un demi-siècle. Ed B.E.B, 1957.
- Private collections. The taste of a Bordeaux amateur
Edition le Festin, 2009.
- Jacques Sargos: Bordeaux seen by painters,
L'Horizon chimérique, 2006.
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