Maxime Emile Louis Maufra - Les Goémons jaunes - image-1

Lot 652 Rα

Maxime Emile Louis Maufra - Les Goémons jaunes

Auction 1013 - overview Cologne
25.05.2013, 11:30 - Modern Art May 25 2013
Estimate: 30.000 € - 35.000 €
Result: 50.020 € (incl. premium)

Maxime Emile Louis Maufra

Les Goémons jaunes
1891

Öl auf Leinwand, doubliert 60,5 x 73,5/74 cm

Rau Collection for UNICEF


Maxime Maufra, a self-taught painter, had started at an early age while at the same time continuing in a full-time commercial career. In 1890, however, he decided to dedicate his entire life to painting. He turned his back on his home town of Nantes and travelled to Brittany where he spent quite a while in Pont-Aven and where he met Paul Gauguin and Paul Sérusier.

This is also the context of this painting which shows a rocky part of the Breton coast in the bright light of summer. Maufra did not depict a conventional, idyllic beach scene. Rather, he focused on the everyday motif of seaweed, washed onto the rough unspoiled coast in large quantities and getting caught among the rocks in the shallow water. What may have intrigued the painter so much about this subject was perhaps the contrast of colour and structure that could be observed between the orange-yellow seaweed and the lucid blue of the water. He captured the simple beauty of the scene in all its intense brightness and colours.

In his use of pure, vibrant colours Maufra appears to have been inspired by the School of Pont-Aven, while at the same time remaining highly independent in his artistic expression.

In 1892 he was the first artist to move into the famous studio in Paris called Bateau-Lavoir. As well as his Parisian cityscapes, Maufra continued to be well-known for his coastal paintings which he created on his repeated sojourns in Brittany and Normandy.

Certificate

With a confirmation from Caroline Durand-Ruel Godfroy, dated 27 March 2013. The painting will be included in the catalogue raisonné of the work of Maxime Maufra currently in preparation.

Provenance

Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris (1894); Galerie Durand-Ruel, New York (1895); R. Spaulding, New York (1899); Fifth Avenue Art Galleries, New York (1904); Arthur Tooth & Sons Ltd., London without year (label reverse); Sotheby's London Auction 29 March 1973, lot 132

Literature

Jean-Jacques Lévêque, Les années de la Belle Époque 1890-1914, Paris 1991, pp. 230 and 720, with colour illus. 230

Exhibitions

Quimper 1996 (Musée des Beaux-Arts), Maxime Maufra, cat. no. 13, illus. p. 53; Paris/Quimper/Naples 2003/2004 (Musée du Luxembourg/Musée des Beaux Arts/Castel Sant'Elmo), L'aventure de Pont-Aven et Gauguin