Adrien Persac Sold at Auction Prices

Marie-Adrien Persac, French/Louisiana 1823-1873, Elm Hall, Assumption Parish, gouache with collage on woven French-made paper laid on board laid on canvas, 17 3/4 in. x 23 1/2 in

Marie-Adrien Persac French/Louisiana, 1823-1873 Elm Hall, Assumption Parish gouache with collage on woven French-made paper laid on board laid on canvas 1859, signed and dated lower right, titled lower left, label with house history on backing paper, 17 3/4 in. x 23 1/2 in., framed, overall 25 3/4 in. x 31 3/4 in. x 1 in. Provenance: Ebenezer Eaton Kittredge; by descent in the family to the present owner. Ill.: Bacot, H. Parrott, Barbara SoRelle Bacot, Sally Kittredge Reeves, John Magill and John H. Lawrence. "Marie Adrien Persac: Louisiana Artist". Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000, pp. 40-41.

Marie Adrien Persac (French/Louisiana, 1823-1873)

Marie Adrien Persac (French/Louisiana, 1823-1873), "Elm Hall, Assumption Parish", 1859, gouache with collage on woven French-made paper laid on board laid on canvas, signed and dated lower right, titled lower left, label with house history on backing paper, 17 3/4 in. x 23 1/2 in., framed, overall 25 3/4 in. x 31 3/4 in. x 1 in. Provenance: Ebenezer Eaton Kittredge; by descent in the family to the present owner. Ill.: Bacot, H. Parrott, Barbara SoRelle Bacot, Sally Kittredge Reeves, John Magill and John H. Lawrence. Marie Adrien Persac: Louisiana Artist. Baton Ro uge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000, pp. 40-41.Note: The artist Marie Adrien Persac is known best for his gouache and watercolor paintings of south Louisiana plantations, often commissioned by the owners of these properties to hang in pride of place in their homes. "Elm Hall" of 1859 is one of the rare surviving known works of this genre and was included in the landmark monograph on the artist published in 2000 to accompany an exhibition held the same year at the Louisiana State University Museum of Art. Of Elm Hall’s origins the authors write: “The builder of Elm Hall typified the well-to-do Americans who came to Bayou Lafourche in the second and third decades of the nineteenth century. Ebenezer Eaton Kittredge, M.D. (1799-1867), was a native of Walpole, New Hampshire, and was among the first of the Anglo-Americans to assemble large sugar plantations by buying the small holdings of the descendants of the original Acadian settlers.” Dr. Kittredge received medical training in New Hampshire before deciding to relocate. He settled first in Jefferson County, Mississippi about ten miles north of Natchez. He married his first wife, Martha Willis Green, there in 1820. The couple moved to Assumption Parish, Louisiana around 1828. Dr. Kittredge built a conventional style home for South Louisiana with a high basement ground level and living areas on the second story. When Martha died in 1836, the couple had six children. By 1839, Dr. Kittredge had re-married, and an additional eight children were born between 1840 and 1862. The original four-bay home had a side-hall plan; however, the house was expanded to eleven bays by 1859 when Persac depicted it. Bacot states: “Of Persac’s known gouaches of Louisiana plantation houses, this is the lone example that goes against the fashionable color scheme of the 1850s and early 1860s, white walls with green exterior blinds. The tan walls of Elm Hall are intended to represent stone.” Of additional interest is the inclusion of the red brick Gothic Revival church seen between the trees at the far left. The Kittredges, like most Anglo-American planters in the area, were Protestants, and in 1853, he donated a piece of Elm Hall’s land to the Protestant Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana. While Elm Hall was destroyed by fire in the early twentieth century, Christ Church, built in 1854, and its cemetery survived, now surrounded by the town of Napoleonville. The condition of this rare work, which has been professionally conserved, can be in part attributed to the artist himself: “Of all Persac’s gouaches, this picture has suffered the most from a combination of dampness and a glaze that Persac employed to heighten the color on dark areas of many of his paintings. The glaze causes the pigments to ‘cup’ and flake away. In 1975, the paper conservation team of R.R. Donnelly and Son in Chicago discovered while working on the LSU Museum of Art’s Persac of Hope Estate that the cupping could be relaxed and flattened through careful humidification. The flattened flakes could be readhered to the support by injecting glue from behind. The offending glaze could then be removed with distilled water.” Persac’s painting of Elm Hall is both a portrait of a grand family home and a detailed window onto life in the Antebellum South. Owned by the Kittredge family since its creation, this lot represents an incredibly rare opportunity to acquire a unique piece of Louisiana history. Ref.: Bacot, H. Parrott, Barbara SoRelle Bacot, Sally Kittredge Reeves, John Magill and John H. Lawrence. Marie Adrien Persac: Louisiana Artist. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000, pp. 40-41.

Indiana (Three Drawings)

Marie Adrien Persac 1823 - 1873 Indiana: Three Drawings the first: signed A. Persac (lower right); inscribed (on the reverse) the second: signed A. Persac (lower right); inscribed and numbered 158 (on the reverse) the third: signed A. Persac and inscribed (lower right); inscribed Indiana (on the reverse)  each, gouache on paper the first: 13 ¼ by 9 ⅜ in.; the second: 6 ½ by 10 in.; the third: 9 ⅝ by 6 ¼ in. the first: 33.7 by 23.8 cm.; the second: 16.5 by 25.4 cm.; the third: 24.4 by 15.9 cm.

After Marie Adrien Persac (American/Louisiana)

After Marie Adrien Persac (American/Louisiana, 1823-1873), "Plantations on the Mississippi River from Natchez to New Orleans, 1858", New Orleans, Pelican Book Shop, Inc., 1931, printed by Rand McNally & Company, showing the divisions of land with owner's names, vignettes of New Orleans, Baton Rouge and plantations, decorative border composed of cotton plants and sugar cane, sight 52 1/2 in. x 30 3/4 in., framed.

Marie Adrien Persac (French/New Orleans, 1823)

Marie Adrien Persac (French/New Orleans, 1823-1873) , "Manchac, Iberville Parish", 1851 or 1857, watercolor and gouache on pulp paper, signed and dated lower right, 17 1/2 in. x 25 3/4 in., framed . Provenance: James Norfleet Brown (1806-1859); thence by descent . Ill.: Bacot, H. Parrott, Bacot, Barbara S., et al. Marie Adrien Persac: Louisiana Artist. Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2000, pp. 56-57. Note: The artist Marie Adrien Persac is known best for his gouache and watercolor paintings of south Louisiana plantations. "Manchac" is one of the surviving twenty known works of this genre. As an American artist, Persac falls between the fine arts of the Hudson River School and folk art. Trained in France as an engineer, his works are clearly those of an architect, as are seen most clearly in his drawings of Canal Street in The Historic New Orleans Collection and his advertisements for property sales in New Orleans' Notarial Archives. Yet his plantation paintings go beyond strict architectural delineation. On the brink of the Civil War, his is a halcyon South. The sky is always blue; the cane and grass, always green; and the white of houses, outbuildings and fences, always newly painted or whitewashed. Like the others, "Manchac" is not only a landscape but also a portrait. The owners commissioned portraits of their houses to hang in pride of place in those very homes. Like the sitters in family portraits, the houses are in their best dress, without fallen palings or unpainted walls to be seen, but like the sitter, all must be clearly recognizable. With his draftsman's training, Persac was the very man to paint house and garden and appurtenances in exact detail. The two paintings of Shadows-on-the-Teche are the only ones which still hang in the original house. In comparing the surviving houses to their paintings, every part of the architecture is clearly there, but with no embellishments. Since this is true, it is safe to conclude that every part of scene--outbuildings, fences, ditches and gardens--is equally correct. What is seen in the painting was indeed there. This property of John Norfleet Brown is shown on "Norman's Chart of the Mississippi River," also drawn by Persac. The house stood in Iberville Parish on the east bank of the river and the south bank of Bayou Manchac and faced the river, with the sugarhouse far to the rear. The road, ditches and fences are seen to comply with the 1821 ordinances of East Baton Rouge Parish just on the north side of the bayou. Horses and sheep enliven the view of the pasture; the latter were decorative and also for the table. The garden is worth a special note. The more popular taste in mid-century was for a grass yard with trees, although Louisianians were fond of lining theirs with trees, especially live oaks. Here regimented rows of ornamentals--trees, shrubs and agave--line the drive. The trees along the fence are unnaturally tall in order not to block the view of the house. With his meticulous attention to detail and distinctive viewpoint, Persac created one painting that is simultaneously a portrait of a grand home, a historical document and a beautiful work of art which reveals the landscape and way of life in 1850s Louisiana from a unique and rare perspective. Neal Auction Company would like to thank Barbara SoRelle Bacot for her gracious assistance in cataloguing this lot and writing the catalogue note.

After Marie Adrien Persac (American/Louisiana)

After Marie Adrien Persac (American/Louisiana, 1823-1873), "Plantations on the Mississippi River from Natchez to New Orleans, 1858", New Orleans, Pelican Book Shop Inc, 1931, printed by Rand McNally & Company, showing the divisions of land with owners' names, vignettes of New Orleans, Baton Rouge and plantations, decorative border composed of cotton plants and sugar cane, sight 52 in. x 30 in., framed

Rare and Monumental "Norman's Chart of the Lower Mississippi, from Natchez to New Orleans"

Rare and Monumental "Norman's Chart of the Lower Mississippi, from Natchez to New Orleans" hand-colored lithograph after Marie Adrien Persac's (French/Louisiana, 1823-1873) drawn survey of the plantation holdings along the river, published by B.. M. Norman, New Orleans, 1858, printed by J. H. Colton and Company, New York. Glazed in a float-mounted frame; together with its original cloth-bound board portfolio with tooling and gilt lettering, 8-3/4" x 5-1/2". sheet 63-1/2" x 31-1/2", framed 72" x 40" Notes: Norman's monumental map of the plantations from New Orleans to Natchez is regarded by historians and collectors as the most important map ever produced of the region - as it accurately charts the types of plantations, the owners, locations of schools, post-offices, hotels and churches on both sides of the Mississippi in the antebellum era. In 1938, it was estimated by a writer for the Baton Rouge Advocate (based on research culled from Dr. Wendell H. Stephenson, Professor of History at LSU) that not more than eight or ten of the original 1858 maps still existed. Today only four of those monumental works are knowingly conserved in public institutions: one is in the Historic New Orleans Collection, another is in the Louisiana State University (LSU) archive, a third is in the collection of the Howard Memorial Library (now Howard-Tilton at Tulane University) and a fourth is still actively used by the Louisiana Supreme Court to settle land ownership cases. Even rarer is its presence at auction, since most of the maps were rolled or folded in fifths and used by river pilots, they have deteriorated through time. According to auction databases, since the mid-1990s, only three have come to auction; all have sold for over $160,000. The map offered here represents a scarce opportunity for the discerning collector to own both an important historical record and a rare work of art by one of the most important Louisiana artists of the first half of the 19th century. Adrien Persac was a prolific painter, draftsman surveyor, lithographer and photographer, who recorded more plantation scenes than any other artist. In addition to painting roughly thirty idealized plantation scenes and public buildings in gouache for private clients, Persac also worked in traditional watercolors, working as a map surveyor and depicting houses for the auction market in New Orleans. In 1857, Benjamin Moore Norman commissioned him to chart a "perfect picture" of the glories of the "windings of the Father of Waters from this city to Natchez". After the map was published and advertised in multiple newspaper classifieds to the public between March and April 1858, the New Orleans Crescent declared that Persac "deserves the highest credit for his very able and useful labor", as he, being the true artist that he was, "descended the river in a skiff, landing at every mile, and drawing every plantation line and taking down every name and landmark on both banks of the river." References: Dutton, Malile. "Two Copies of 'Persac's Map' Recall Faded Glory of Plantations." Advocate. Dec. 11, 1938; "Norman's Chart of the River Mississippi". Crescent. April, 1858.

Adrien Persac, "Plantations of the Mississippi River," 20th c., after his 1858 original, presented in an antiqued wood frame with a...

Adrien Persac, "Plantations of the Mississippi River," 20th c., after his 1858 original, presented in an antiqued wood frame with a silvered liner, H.- 52 5/8 in., W.- 30 5/8 in.

After Marie Adrien Persac (1823-1873), "Norman''s Chart of the Lower Mississippi River from Natchez to New Orleans," 1858, by A. Pers..

After Marie Adrien Persac (1823-1873), "Norman''s Chart of the Lower Mississippi River from Natchez to New Orleans," 1858, by A. Persac, published by B.M. Norman, New Orleans, LA, a 20th c. facsimile, showing the divisions of land with owner''s names, vignettes of New Orleans, Baton Rouge and plantations, the decorative border composed of cotton plants and sugar cane motifs, presented in a mahogany frame, H.- 47 5/8 in., W.- 22 5/8 in.

After Marie Adrien Persac (1823-1873), "Norman's Chart of the Lower Mississippi River from Natchez to New Orleans," 1858, by A. Pers...

After Marie Adrien Persac (1823-1873), "Norman's Chart of the Lower Mississippi River from Natchez to New Orleans," 1858, by A. Persac, published by B.M. Norman, New Orleans, LA, a 20th c. facsimile, showing the divisions of land with owner's names, vignettes of New Orleans, Baton Rouge and plantations, the decorative border composed of cotton plants and sugar cane motifs, presented in a mahogany frame, H.- 47 5/8 in., W.- 22 5/8 in.

After Marie Adrien Persac (1823-1873), "Norman's Chart of the Lower Mississippi River from Natchez to New Orleans," 1858, by A. Pers..

After Marie Adrien Persac (1823-1873), "Norman's Chart of the Lower Mississippi River from Natchez to New Orleans," 1858, by A. Persac, published by B.M. Norman, New Orleans, LA, a 20th c. facsimile, showing the divisions of land with owner's names, vignettes of New Orleans, Baton Rouge and plantations, the decorative border composed of cotton plants and sugar cane motifs, presented in a burled frame, H.- 47 5/8 in., W.- 22 5/8 in.

After Marie Adrien Persac (1823-1873), "Norman's Chart of the Lower Mississippi River from Natchez to New Orleans," 1858, by A. Pers..

After Marie Adrien Persac (1823-1873), "Norman's Chart of the Lower Mississippi River from Natchez to New Orleans," 1858, by A. Persac, published by B.M. Norman, New Orleans, LA, a 20th c. facsimile, showing the divisions of land with owner's names, vignettes of New Orleans, Baton Rouge and plantations, the decorative border composed of cotton plants and sugar cane motifs, presented in a burled frame, H.- 47 5/8 in., W.- 22 5/8 in.

Adrien Persac, "Plantations of the Mississippi River," 20th c., after his 1858 original, presented in a burled wood frame, H.- 52 1/...

Adrien Persac, "Plantations of the Mississippi River," 20th c., after his 1858 original, presented in a burled wood frame, H.- 52 1/2 in., W.- 30 1/2 in.

Marie Adrien Persac (French/Louisiana, 1823-1873)

Marie Adrien Persac (French/Louisiana, 1823-1873), "View of a French Harbor", c. 1850, gouache and watercolor on paper mounted on board, signed "A. Persac" lower right, sheet 5 3/8 in. x 8 1/2 in., framed

Adrien Persac, "Plantations of the Mississippi River," 20th c., after his 1858 original, framed, H.- 52 1/2 in., W.- 30 5/8 in.

Marie Adrien Persac (French/New Orleans,

Marie Adrien Persac (French/New Orleans, 1823-1873), "Palo Alto Plantation, Ascension Parish", gouache and collage on paper, 17 in. x 23 in., attractively matted and framed. Provenance: With Pierre Oscar Ayraud; Thence to his daughter, Mary Lee Ayraud (Mrs. Frederick Landry), 1867; Thence to her daughter, Mary Lee Landry (Mrs. Arthur A. Lemann), 1929; Thence to her son, Arthur A."Bubs" Lemann, Jr., 1954 Thence by descent in the Lemann Family. Published: Bacot, H. Parrott et al, Marie Adrien Persac: Louisiana Artist, 2000, pp. 62-63; Bacot, Barbara S.R., "Marie Adrien Persac: Architect, Artist and Engineer," The Magazine Antiques, November, 1991, pp. 806-815 Note: Marie Adrien Persac: Louisiana Artist is dedicated "to the memory of Arthur A. 'Bubs' Lemann (1917-1993) Pioneer Researcher of the life and works of Marie Adrien Persac." We would like to thank Pat and Barbara Bacot for sharing the following personal anecdote and additional information which is unavailable elsewhere: Arthur A. "Bubs" Lemann was a charming and passionate gentleman. He was particularly passionate about the work of Adrien Persac because he had this wonderful gouache and collage portrait hanging in the front hall of his home, Palo Alto on Bayou Lafourche in Ascension Parish. In 1975, when I acquired in my capacity as curator of LSU's art museum the first of the museum's five Persac gouaches, Bubs was one of the first to come to the museum. He came enthusiastically bearing his own portfolio of information about the artist, the artist's family and numerous photographs he had made of other Persac paintings. He had devoted years to locating and researching these works. Then came the invitation for my wife and me to come for lunch at Palo Alto and see the painting. We drove up and were waved into the kitchen wing, where the side gallery was a marvelously old-fashioned "new" kitchen added between the house and the detached kitchen shown in the painting. Camille, his delightful and equally charming wife, greeted us in an aromatic cloud redolent of the gumbo she was preparing. We still treasure the recipes this notable cook was so willing to share. In the best southern manner I immediately established that Camille's half-sister, the New Orleans collector Sue Hyams was a friend of ours. Bubs was waiting impatiently to take us into the main house to see his painting. The amber glass of the front door side- and over-lights (carefully recorded in the picture) made the central hall somewhat dim, but the painting hanging halfway down the hall softly glowed. While chills ran up and down our spines at the thrill of being in the very house depicted in the painting, we did not realize over thirty years ago that this was the only privately-owned gouache portrait still hanging in the house it depicted. Such provenance is all-important. Now the National Trust's Shadows-on-the-Teche in New Iberia will be the only house with its Persac views in the house, where images of the facade and bayou elevation hang in the second-floor salon. At the door to his office in Exchange Alley, Persac hung his sign "DESSIN D'ARCHITURE ET DES MACHINES, portraits et passage." He was what he says he was -- an architect and civil engineer who painted portraits and landscapes. Educated in France, he was not an academic painter, but neither was he an inspired craftsman or folk artist. Like the Latrobes, architects who could paint, he was a master of pen, ink and watercolor. Like Gualdi, he transcended drafting to make the most notable part of his career as a painter. In all of the landscapes, the perspective is panoramic and both buildings and trees are attenuated. The detail is exquisite, and there is every reason to believe that it is completely accurate. It has been said that the images are photographic and photography was an aid to accuracy. But no photograph could capture either the encompassing view or the facade unhidden by vegetation --- certainly not in color. Comparing the house at Palo Alto today to the painting, one can see that the detail of the painting is so ac urate and minute that even the octagonal panes of the side- and over-lights around the front door are depicted. Bubs and Camille well knew the accuracy of the image of the house and reconstructed the small double-return staircase at the front of the house and the pigeonnier according to the painting. According to family tradition, the vine-covered building with white curtains is the schoolhouse. Persac's view is the only record of it and all that was lost over time -- fences, sugar house to the rear, overseer's house, plantation bell, quarters and boat house. The paper of the gouaches was always French all rag, and two gouaches have the cacheted stamp of M. Pottin of Nantes. (After the Civil War he eschewed fine French paper in favor of inexpensive pulp paper, and he switched to the less laborious medium of transparent watercolor.) For his principal landscapes such as Palo Alto, the medium is watercolor enhanced by gouache and glaze. Unique in landscape painting is his use of collage. The figures in the foreground are particularly interesting in that the print on the other side can be seen through the white of the lady's shawl. For the foregrounds, Persac often painted figures from weekly or daily publications, cut them out and glued them to the landscape. He always painted background figures, such as the gentleman in white standing at the foot of the stairs, believed by the family to be Pierre Oscar Ayraud, the builder of the house who commissioned the painting.

* MARIE ADRIEN PERSAC 1823-1873

SIGNED AND DATED (MAKER'S MARKS) signed A. Persac, l.r.

* MARIE ADRIEN PERSAC 1823-1873

SIGNED AND DATED (MAKER'S MARKS) signed A. Persac, l.r.

Marie Adrien Persac (French/American, 1823-1873)

signed, gouache

Marie Adrien Persac (French/American, 1823-1873)

signed, gouache

Marie Adrien Persac (French/American, 1823-1873)

signed, gouache

Marie Adrien Persac (French/American, 1823-1873)

signed, watercolour

Marie Adrien Persac (French/American, 1823-1873)

gouache

Marie Adrien Persac (French/American, 1823-1873)

signed, gouache

Marie Adrien Persac (French/American, 1823-1873)

signed, gouache