La Normandie : projet de carton pour la tapisserie de la manufacture des Gobelins. Étude 2 - Encre sur papier

Three original ink drawings on a sheet folded in half, and a manuscript note by the artist on verso "Plus penser que dire". Artist's signature stamp in the lower right corner of the work, and workshop signature stamp on verso. Louis Anquetin, through his friendship with art critic Gustave Geoffroy who was appointed administrator of the Manufactures Nationales, obtained three commissions for cartoons for the Gobelins, "Bourgogne" in 1911, a carpet "Les cygnes", and in 1912 "La Normandie", tapestry. This tapestry was composed of three panels, as can be seen in this study. Very fine condition. Provenance: from the artist's workshop, referenced in the catalogue Atelier Louis Anquetin (Thierry de Maigret, 28/11/08). Louis Anquetin, born in Étrépagny in 1861 and died in Paris in 1932, was an important French painter. He began his career alongside avant-garde painters such as Vincent Van Gogh and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. With Émile Bernard, he invented Cloisonnism. From 1884 to 1893, Louis Anquetin continuously explored the new possibilities offered by the liberation introduced by Impressionism in French painting. From 1893 onwards, following a long confrontation with the "old masters", he adopted a pictorial stance that would place him on the margins of the general art movement, and distance him from his friends. Dazzled by baroque art and its creative vigor, he then believed that his youthful friends had embarked on a path that would lead to the death of painting. He believed in a "perfect painting" that was embodied in the remembrance of the lessons of Michelangelo and Rubens in particular. His work therefore became more classical, he advocated a return to craft, proposing to reflect on the a priori conditions of any possible form of art while respecting the rules of perspective and anatomy, as practiced by the masters of the 16th and 17th centuries. Leaving only a few works that can be described as monumental, Anquetin proved prolific through his numerous studies and sketches, he who considered that drawing was "an all-powerful means of expression", the obligatory foundation of all plastic arts. By working deliberately against his time, Louis Anquetin made possible the existence of an original modern figuration. Through his obstinacy and his passion for painting, he indeed prevented the path of the great Western tradition from being completely blocked. His works can be admired in numerous and prestigious museums such as the Musée d'Orsay and the Louvre in Paris, in San Francisco and Detroit, at the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, at the National Gallery and the Tate in London, etc.