Henri Martin

Marie-Louise Bougerol, Labastide-du-Vert (a gift from the artist)
Private Collection (acquired from the family of the above in 1984 and sold: Sotheby's, London, December 9, 1997, lot 211)
Private Collection (acquired at the above sale)
Acquired in 2007

The canvas is unlined. The surface is richly textured and the pigment is remarkably fresh and bright. There are a few lines of thin stable craquelure to the forgeound figure's skirt and some very minor paintloss in the orange pigment along the left lower edge. Under UV light: an intermittent horizontal line of retouching is visible running parallel to the upper edge as well as a few tiny pindots of inpainting to foreground figure's skirt.
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In 1900, Henri Martin bought a handsome seventeenth-century manor overlooking the village of Labastide-du-Vert in his native Southwest France. Marquayrol quickly became a cherished retreat from Paris, where Martin had moved in order to further his studies whilst still a young painter. He returned there every year between the months of May and November, reveling in the southern light that he had so missed.

Martin spent a great deal of time in the grounds of Marquayrol where he had cultivated an extensive Italianate garden, replete with cypress lined paths, a circular pool with a statue, and a terrace with a pergola whose vines formed a canopy that offered shade and shelter from the summer sun. It was here in this idyllic setting that the present work was painted on a sunny afternoon. The figures have been identified as Mademoiselle Gabrielle, a family friend and frequent visitor to Marquayrol who lived in Labastide-du-Vert, and two housemaids named Eugénie Esbelin and Marie-Louise Bougerol—seated on the left—to whom the artist gifted the finished work.