Henri Martin

After searching for the ideal house for almost ten years, Henri Martin finally acquired Marquayrol in 1900, a beautiful mansion overlooking La Bastide du Vert, near Cahors.  The house and the region became his main sources of inspiration and deeply influenced his style.  It was here that the artist found the important southern light denied to him in Paris which stimulated and fulfilled his artistic needs.  As Claude Juskiewenski suggested, "cette installation à 40 dans le Lot marque un tournant décisif dans sa production artistique.  Muses et Lyres s’évanouissent de ses toiles et il ose affronter quotidiennement la luminosité méridionale." (C. Juskiewenski Henri Martin 1860 – 1943, (exhibition catalogue), Cahors & Toulouse, 1993, p. 98)

The present work encapsulates Martin’s signature style of broken brushwork suspended within a rigorously structured composition.  Cyrille Martin, the artist’s grandson identifies it as one of the earliest works painted by the artist at Marquayrol. Martin’s paintings are generally difficult to date with precision but in the present work the clue lies in the small tree on the left of the composition.  Martin planted the tree in 1900 as a tribute to the Florentine landscapes he discovered during several trips to Italy. 

The artist very rarely included people in his landscapes.  The present work is exceptional in that it places his wife within a scene in which both she and her surroundings are treated with equal affection and attention to detail.