.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Marquet was born in 1875 in the port city of Bordeaux. Though the artist left home at the age of fifteen to pursue his artistic career in Paris, the seascape and port motif, with its play of light on the water, remained an enduring fascination for Marquet. Around 1910, Marquet began to win an audience for his art and in particular for his scenes of overlooking the Seine; he quickly developed a taste for traveling and thus emerged views of the ports of Europe and North Africa—including Hamburg, Rotterdam, Naples, Le Havre, Algiers and Tunis among others. “The first thing which stands out is that Marquet always remained close to nature. He was acutely aware of reality. He regarded every landscape and scene with interest. For this reason Marquet cannot be accused of being narrow minded. So different from a host of painters who led more circumscribed lives, Marquet was an indefatigable traveler who was always trying to enlarge his horizons. Marquet has left his individual stamp from the dock side cranes of Le Havre to the tugs of Hamburg, from the bobbing masts in the harbors of Tunis and Naples, to the busy scenes of the Bosphorus, Algiers and Marseilles. From every point of the compass he has reproduced the delicate shades of the changing pattern of light on the hulls of ships, and has captured the most subtle tints of sky and sea” (F. Daulte, “The Work of Marquet,” Marquet, exh. cat., Knoedler Gallery, New York, 1964, n.p.).
Both the Arcachon Bay and the Sables d’Olonnes had been popular holiday spots since the late 1900s; the color and atmosphere naturally attracted Marquet’s brush. The glowing light that we encounter in this work reaches deep into the essence of his art. Writing in 1913, Marcel Sembat, a member of the French parliament and early supporter of Picasso in his Cubist experiments, commented: "No artist has the same relationship with light as Marquet. It is as if he owned it. He possesses the secret of a pure and intense light which fills all the sky with its uniform and colorless glow... Luminous as daylight itself and so transparent that a painting by Marquet gives the impression of a large window being opened onto the outside" (quoted in Marquet, exh. cat., Wildenstein & Co. Inc., New York, 1985, p. 6).
Both the Arcachon Bay and the Sables d’Olonnes had been popular holiday spots since the late 1900s; the color and atmosphere naturally attracted Marquet’s brush. The glowing light that we encounter in this work reaches deep into the essence of his art. Writing in 1913, Marcel Sembat, a member of the French parliament and early supporter of Picasso in his Cubist experiments, commented: "No artist has the same relationship with light as Marquet. It is as if he owned it. He possesses the secret of a pure and intense light which fills all the sky with its uniform and colorless glow... Luminous as daylight itself and so transparent that a painting by Marquet gives the impression of a large window being opened onto the outside" (quoted in Marquet, exh. cat., Wildenstein & Co. Inc., New York, 1985, p. 6).