Lot 91: André Chabellard (French 19th/20th Century)

Les lavandières à Pont-sur-Yonne
signed and dated 'Chabellard/Octbre 91' (lower right)
oil on canvas
182.5 x 149 cm. (71 3/4 x 58 3/4 in.)

By the 1850's, artists in Paris were becoming increasingly eager to search beyond their metropolis for diversity in their subject matter. Indeed the urban patterns of apartment buildings and train stations, churches and boulevards peopled with hurrying figures could no longer satisfy some of these artists in their search for realist scenes of the labouring force. This prompted a widespread interest in the customs and lifestyles of the French folk, tucked away in the surrounding provincial towns, villages and countryside. Access to these had become easier more recently with the gradual implementation of the railway network. The present painting is concerned with the contemporary issues at stake in the emerging awareness in France of the social realities of its working class. However, in contrast to any paintings by Jean-Francois Millet (1814-1875) or Gustave Courbet (1819-1877), and their followers, who opted for a sombre and earthy palette, Chabellard depicts his subject of washerwomen at work in a regional town of Northern France with a remarkable range of bright - and even stark - colours. There is no intent to show the misery of daily life here; rather, the artist finds himself preoccupied with the beauty of the village setting and women. The choice of portraying in the foreground a moment shared by a mother with her daughter introduces a hint of sentimentalism which, in itself, agrees with the overall tone of this painting. In unsparingly beautifying his subject, Chabellard reveals his impressive skills for line, colour and emotional balance of its human characters.
The life of André Chabellard has not been recorded to any extent, either by the artist himself, his contemporaries or any later scholar. Biographical information on this artist remains surprisingly scarce. It is indeed curious that a painter of such artistic talent, exhibiting in Paris, should not have drawn the attention of curators or researchers alike. Chabellard's work in Paris is only known from his regular contributions to the Salon des Artistes Français, from 1891 onward. This painting dates from this first recorded showing at the Salon.