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Premium Gabriel de SAINT-AUBIN (Paris, 1724 - 1780)
The Bezons Fair
…
See original version (French)
Gabriel de SAINT-AUBIN (Paris, 1724 - 1780)
The Bezons Fair
…
See original version (French)
Lot no. 41
Description
Gabriel de SAINT-AUBIN (Paris, 1724 - 1780)
The Bezons Fair
Oil on canvas
The fair at Bezons, oil on canvas, by G. Saint-Aubin
19.09 x 23.62 in.
48.5 x 60 cm
Provenance: Anonymous sale; Thomaston, Thomaston Place Auction Galleries, 26 August 2023, no. 2281 (as Jean-Baptiste Pater);
Acquired at this sale by the current owner;
Private collection, Ile-de-France
A tireless and bulimic chronicler of Parisian life, Gabriel de Saint-Aubin was everywhere from morning to night, along the boulevards or in a theatre box, capturing the attitude of a water carrier or the visit of a foreign monarch. He was present at the most exclusive salons, Academy exhibitions and the most popular festivals; he was the insatiable eye and the most engaging critic of daily life in the capital in the 18th century.
This scribbler, whose stains on his drawings bear witness to a life without rules or constraints - "bohemian" we might say, with a certain anachronism - was appreciated by all, and was in a way part of the décor, as his presence was implicit in every major event in the Parisian calendar.
Festivals and popular celebrations attracted him just as much as the arrival of an embassy, and there are many drawings that testify to his joy in depicting couples dancing, playing or enjoying each other's company: 'Les fêtes à Saint-Cloud' (a sheet dated 1762, formerly in the Goncourt collection), that of the Saint-Laurent fair (dated the same year and recently presented for sale1), and those taking place in the Tuileries gardens2 are all examples of the artist's frenzy in drawing these moments of life.
Paintings by Gabriel de Saint-Aubin, on the other hand, are much rarer (probably around twenty), and the discovery of our painting is a major event for lovers of eighteenth-century France. Although our composition was known from the engraving by Saint-Aubin himself (fig.1) dated 1750, Emile Dacier stated in 1931: "Note the mention 'pinx.', which follows the artist's signature: it probably indicates that the etching was executed by Gabriel de Saint-Aubin after one of his paintings or gouaches "3. The very existence of our painting was only supposed and its discovery in this sale is an event!
Describing the subject of our painting the same year, the lawyer Barbier wrote in his Journal on 30 August 1750: "At the same time as this procession [of the relics of Saint Maur] passed through the streets of Paris on one side, on the other side there were horse-drawn carriages, carriages full of masks, and others on horseback, because it is the fair of the little Bezons, above the Champs-Elysées, which is a marked day for walking in Paris, both for the people and for those in carriages; Sunday 30th is Saint Fiacre's day, and this fair is always the Sunday closest to Saint Fiacre's day "4. More than the festival itself, our painting probably illustrates the return of this fair, which was marked by a cavalcade, the exuberance of which is well captured by the painter with these characters dressed in commedia dell'arte costumes perched on the roofs of the carriages. In 1905, Léon Greder quoted the etching of our composition and detailed in his 'Notes topographiques sur l'itinéraire du retour de Bezons' the route followed by the cavalcade of masks that everyone wanted to see return to Paris5.
1 Anonymous sale; Paris, Hôtel Drouot, Millon et ass. 8 December 2010, lot 5.
2 For example, anonymous sale; London, Christie's, 13 December 1984, lot 171.
3 Emile Dacier, Gabriel de Saint-Aubin, peintre, dessinateur et graveur, catalogue raisonné, Paris et Bruxelles, 1931, t.2, p.103-104.
4 Edmond-Jean-François Barbier, Chronique de la Régence, Paris, 1858, t. IV, p.467
5 Léon Greder, "Le retour de la foire de Bezons aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles", in Bulletin de la Société historique et archéologique des VIIIe et XVIIe arrondissements de Paris, Oct-Dec 1905, pp. 86-120.
Gabriel de SAINT-AUBIN (Paris, 1724 - 1780)
48.5 x 60 cm
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
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