Jean Discart

Sale: Christie's, London, January 6, 1946, lot 179
Lyon (acquired at the above sale)
Private Collector, London
Thence by descent

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This beautiful picture is painted on a single piece of what appears to be mahogany, which is unbroken and flat. There is no instability or paint loss to the surface. The painting has recently been cleaned and varnished. There are no retouches to speak of and it should be hung as is.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Jean Discart was born in the Italian city of Modena in 1856 and in 1873, at the age of seventeen, he enrolled in a history painting course at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts taught by the famous German classical painter Anselm Feuerbach. After Feuerbach retired from the Academy, Discart and his fellow students Ludwig Deutsch and Carl Merode applied to study under Leopold Carl Müller, who was made professor of the Academy following Feuerbach.  They were refused admittance into Müller's class, which prompted Discart and Deutsch to travel to Paris (though Discart was admitted to Müller's class the next year).  Discart's career is an interesting combination of these two influences: his classical training in Vienna under such revered master-painters, and his experiences with his contemporaries in the cosmopolitan Paris art world.  He first exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1884, but after that there is very little record of the remainder of his career. He painted Orientalist subjects through the 1920s, however, and judging from the inscription "Tanger" on many of his works, it seems possible that he visited the Moroccan city. 

 

In A Pottery Studio, Tangiers, Discart's choice of subject is intriguing; he has essentially painted a painter. His decision to depict his subject in a moment of rapt concentration, conveyed by his furrowed brow and steadied hand, signals the man's earnest devotion to his craft, perhaps not unlike Discart's own. The pottery painter is surrounded by objects of his trade: tankards, dishes, water jugs and buckets; all of which are typical of North Africa. The large platter to the right of the painter with the distinctive vibrant blue, green, and yellow pattern is an example of Fez pottery. In the fifteenth century, skilled Moorish pottery makers fled Spain for Morocco, settling in Fez, Meknes, Safi and Marrakech. Upon arriving they rebuilt their kilns and for the next four hundred years, Moroccan potters, particularly those in Fez, flourished and produced some of the highest quality examples of their trade in the Islamic world. The straw basket on the shelf to the right is a common tagine serving piece, and the item on the left shelf next to the large round dish is an example of Berber ceramics. Other items in the scene appear to come from the Kabylie region in Algeria.

 

Discart's skill in capturing detail is remarkable; he effectively manipulates the paint and brushstrokes to render various textures, much like his contemporary Deutsch. The layers upon layers of dried paint in the artist's pots; the smooth, matte surface of the unglazed pottery, the heavy weave of the rug behind the figure; Discart attempts to recreate each object's individual physical qualities. The dazzling Fez platter is clearly intended as the focal point of work, however, and is a conspicuous demonstration of Discart's skill as a painter. Juxtaposed with the basic pattern on the painter's water jug, the intricacy and detail of the platter is stunning and its appearance of three-dimensionality striking. While Discart's affection for his subject is wholly apparent in his painstaking attention to detail, A Pottery Studio, Tangiers is also an exceptional presentation of Discart's significant artistic abilities.