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Lot Essay
The late Cyrille Martin has confirmed the authenticity of this work.
Martin originally came from the southern French city of Toulouse, where he had won the Grand Prix Municipal at the city's Ecole des Beaux-Arts. This prize enabled him to study in Paris, where he subsequently settled. However, in 1900 he purchased Marquayrol, a large 17th century house built on a hill overlooking the picturesque village of Labastide-du-Vert in Lot, southwestern France. Marquayrol became Martin's retreat from Paris, and it was there that he would spend the months between May and November each year, reveling in the southern light that he so missed while living in the city.
Martin cultivated an extensive Italianate garden at Marquayrol, replete with cypress lined paths, a circular pool with a statue, and a terrace with a pergola, seen in the present work, the vines of which formed a canopy that offered shade and shelter from the summer sun. Martin's idyllic garden, as well as the house itself and the nearby village, provided him with a formidable source of inspiration and remained his main connection with nature and light for more than forty years. It was also at Marquayrol that Martin's unique style, a synthesis of a broadly Impressionist approach combined with Pointillist brushwork, reached its maturity. ”By discovering Marquayrol,” Claude Juskiewenski has noted, “Henri Martin had found his equilibrium, his personal and artistic fulfillment” (Henri Martin, exh. cat., Musée de Cahors Henri Martin, 1993, p. 103).
Martin originally came from the southern French city of Toulouse, where he had won the Grand Prix Municipal at the city's Ecole des Beaux-Arts. This prize enabled him to study in Paris, where he subsequently settled. However, in 1900 he purchased Marquayrol, a large 17th century house built on a hill overlooking the picturesque village of Labastide-du-Vert in Lot, southwestern France. Marquayrol became Martin's retreat from Paris, and it was there that he would spend the months between May and November each year, reveling in the southern light that he so missed while living in the city.
Martin cultivated an extensive Italianate garden at Marquayrol, replete with cypress lined paths, a circular pool with a statue, and a terrace with a pergola, seen in the present work, the vines of which formed a canopy that offered shade and shelter from the summer sun. Martin's idyllic garden, as well as the house itself and the nearby village, provided him with a formidable source of inspiration and remained his main connection with nature and light for more than forty years. It was also at Marquayrol that Martin's unique style, a synthesis of a broadly Impressionist approach combined with Pointillist brushwork, reached its maturity. ”By discovering Marquayrol,” Claude Juskiewenski has noted, “Henri Martin had found his equilibrium, his personal and artistic fulfillment” (Henri Martin, exh. cat., Musée de Cahors Henri Martin, 1993, p. 103).