Lot 106: Maternité

Charles Angrand (1854-1926) Maternité signed 'CH.A.' (lower right) conté crayon on paper 25 x 19¼ in. (63.5 x 49 cm.) Drawn circa 1896

Marcel Guicheteau, Paris.
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1967.

PROPERTY FROM A EUROPEAN PRIVATE COLLECTION

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 17.5% on the buyer's premium.
This work is sold with a photo-certificate from Pierre Angrand (the artist's nephew) dated 1967.

The present drawing, executed only a few years after the unexpected death of his friend and mentor Georges Seurat, reflects both Charles Angrand's artistic sensitivity and his meticulousness as a draughtsman. In a letter of 1897 Angrand wrote: 'I have always been very assiduous executing my drawings. Since I know that da Vinci took years to achieve his Joconda, it is my duty to be perseverant, to get it right. I can do the same subject all over again ten or twenty times.' Later on that year in another letter to his friend Signac, Angrand wrote: 'My drawings: the day before yesterday I have signed the third one I have done since I left Paris - eighteen months ago. No one can accuse me of overloading the market...' (F. Lespinassse, Charles Angrand Correspondances 1883-1926, Lagny-sur-Marne, 1988, pp. 85, 89).

Born in Rouen in 1854 Angrand moved to Paris in 1882. By 1884, he was exhibiting Neo-Impressionist paintings at the Société des artistes Indépendants together with Seurat, who became a close friend. They regularly painted together on the island of La Grand Jatte. Seurat's death in 1891 profoundly affected Angrand, who stopped painting for several years and concentrated on making drawings. It was Neo-Impressionists such as Seurat who had returned to the medium of drawing, which had been all but abandoned by the previous generation of Impressionists, who were more interested promoting painting 'en plein air'. In 1892, Angrand exhibited for the first time three drawings at the Salon des Indépendants.

Highly finished and executed exclusively with Conté crayon - ideally suited to convey a dark atmospheric effect - Maternité is one of the artist's rare signed drawings. Angrand used a heavy chiffon-paper produced by Lalanne, whose irregular texture enhanced the effect of the crayon. The quality of the paper was important to Angrand, who considered it crucial to the success of his delicate compositions. He preferred the heavy, fibrous Michallet paper also used by Seurat, which, was impossible to find by 1896. 'Today you cannot count on Michallet. There is no more. They sold all the stock a long time ago - the producer has confessed that he had to cut on weight and quality to stay competitive' (op. Cit.. p. 89).

Angrand treated the subject of Maternité on a number of occasions, concentrating on its essence and eliminating all superfluous detail. Two further finished Maternité are today in the Musée d'Art Moderne - Petit Palais, Geneva (8045; 8046). By defining the forms through a highly nuanced gradation from deep black areas to extremely bright ones using just the white of the paper and avoiding any lines, Angrand employed the same technique as Seurat, following in the tradition of both Millet's drawings and Redon's noirs.

Angrand often used relatives as models for figures in his drawings. In the present work he depicted his sister-in-law, the wife of his younger brother, with their child Antoine, whose prettiness fascinated Angrand: 'I was convinced that his suavity of lines, the adorability of his attitude, the poetry of his chubby contours were impossible to translate. (op.cit. p. 78). A Portrait of Antoine sleeping is in the Musée d'Orsay (RF43405; fig. 1).


(fig. 1) Charles Angrand, Antoine Endormi, 1896. Paris, Musée du Louvre D.A.G. (fonds Orsay); © Photo RMN © Gérard Blot.