Henri LE SIDANER (1862-1939) - Lot 10

Henri LE SIDANER (1862-1939) The gray bridge, Saint-Just-sur-Dive, 1914. Oil on canvas. Signed lower left. 54 x 65 cm. Minor restorations. Provenance: Galerie Georges Petit, Paris (delivered on March 25, 1914 by the artist for 1000 francs). Collection of M. Fournier. Private collection. Then by descent. Exhibitions : April 1914, Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, Exposition de Peintres et de Sculpteurs (ancienne Société Nouvelle présidée par Auguste Rodin), n°44. Bibliography: Yann Farinaux-Le Sidaner. Le Sidaner-L'œuvre peint et gravé, 1989. Reproduced under no. 323 p. 137. While Henri Le Sidaner remained a contemplator of sleeping cities and dreamy hours, his style continued to evolve. After the famous series from his study trips that were so popular at the annual Salons, the artist spent the winter of 1910-1911 in Beaulieu-sur-Mer to care for his son. Accustomed to the mists of the North, his confrontation with the light of the South prompted him to sharpen his style. Le Pont gris (The Grey Bridge) embodies this evolution towards a more vigorous touch, which would come to full fruition during the interwar period. The canvas was painted in Versailles from studies brought back in September 1913 from Saint-Just-sur-Dive, a commune near Montreuil-Bellay, where Le Sidaner and his family regularly stayed on vacation. His sister Marguerite and her husband, the engineer Maurice Bouchet, produced an excellent Cabernet wine here. This delightful vineyard country at the gateway to Anjou and Touraine soon inspired the artist to produce works of quality, such as this modest stone bridge, the poetry of which he sensed. The artist reserved the canvas for the exhibition of the famous Société Nouvelle, now presided over by Auguste Rodin. In Le Mercure de France, Gustave Kahn commented: "M. Le Sidaner is nicely ornamental and manages, in deliberate softness, to better establish the differences in his densities of matter, which is not very easy in his ambition for effects of pure softness."