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Lot Essay
Béatrice Recchi-Altarriba has confirmed the authenticity of this work.
Bernard was commissioned in 1888 to create a fresco for a bedroom in the house of Madame Lemasson, for which he created the biblical scene L’Adoration des Bergers. The original fresco was sadly destroyed by Nazi bombing in 1943, leaving this unique sketch and discussions of the work in letters to his mother and Van Gogh remaining. Bernard draws on primitive and byzantine techniques of representing a religious scene; the figures are aligned in a frieze-like manner as though they were adorned on a stained glass window in a church, and the pillars in the work were designed to create a trompe l’œil effect that resembled the architecture of the bedroom the fresco sat in. In the finished fresco Bernard used the medieval colour palette of primary colours, however in this sketch the simplified figures and monochromatic palette appear modern and draw on the primitive style adopted by Bernard’s contemporary Gauguin around the same time.
Bernard was commissioned in 1888 to create a fresco for a bedroom in the house of Madame Lemasson, for which he created the biblical scene L’Adoration des Bergers. The original fresco was sadly destroyed by Nazi bombing in 1943, leaving this unique sketch and discussions of the work in letters to his mother and Van Gogh remaining. Bernard draws on primitive and byzantine techniques of representing a religious scene; the figures are aligned in a frieze-like manner as though they were adorned on a stained glass window in a church, and the pillars in the work were designed to create a trompe l’œil effect that resembled the architecture of the bedroom the fresco sat in. In the finished fresco Bernard used the medieval colour palette of primary colours, however in this sketch the simplified figures and monochromatic palette appear modern and draw on the primitive style adopted by Bernard’s contemporary Gauguin around the same time.