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Original Title: 'A Pool, Foret Fontainebleau'
Offered for sale:
This painting was *Exhibited
Paris Salon 1875 # 900 Signed and Dated Bottom left 1875
Numbered 900 verso.
Oil on canvas
500 x 750 cm - 20 x 30 inches approx ( Image size)
Provenance:
1875 -1914. Retained by artist thence by decent to
Elisa Antoinette Georget nee Sautereau.
1914 - By inheritance to Mme. Juliet George
1965 - Following her death.
Monsieur Peron-Champin
Thence to private collection, the current vendor.
Condition.
Minor repair bottom left center which has been professionally conserved
10 mm max
Biographic - Biography
Jean Charles
Georget was born in Paris on 27th. March 1843 & orphaned by the age
of four.
He was taken into the care of Monsieur Martial, a guardian and friend
of his father, where Charles endured a childhood which was loveless, cold
and without affection.
Save for his passion for Art and nature, he became disinterested in his
studies and he felt isolated in his boarding school in Gillon de Belville
where he would often draw flattering portraits of his tutors. They in
turn lifted punishments against him for his frequent absenteeism and daydreaming,
in return for the notoriety they gained as the sitter.
He often traveled to Champagne seeking his fathers origins, where he
loved to sketch and paint in the fields and lanes surrounded by vines.
At eighteen,
he entered the house of Monsieur Caron, the notable Paris engraver as
his apprentice, escaping the unforgiving regime of his youth and soon
became appreciated for his vast talent and encouraged enormously by Henriquet
Dupont, a member of the powerful 'Institute.'
By the age
of twenty eight, Georget had mixed with the artistic elite of Paris, yet
felt out of place in their company and the café socialle. He preferred
instead the peace and tranquility of Farcy Les Lys, a sister village of
Barbizon, to the south of Paris and bordering Fontainebleau, where he
favoured the light and the beauty of the forest and held a never ending
fascination of the river Seine.
Georget was a great observer of the qualities of light and marveled at
the intricacies of nature and the deer he stalked. As a painter, he wanted nothing more than to
be himself. Neither money, fame nor success mattered to this simple unassuming
man.
Charles was a quiet man, a seeker and a silent man, who would often trek
for hours into the forest in search of a hidden pool, the deer and the quietness
of a moment, as captured here in this beautiful oil painting sharing with us the dawn light beneath the arboreal canopy.
He traveled
to the Pyrenees with Gelibert, dreamed of the brilliance of light he witnessed
in Algeria and was encouraged by Daubigny and Constant.
Teaching, painting and his fascination for nature were his all prevailing
passions.
He married Elisa Antoinette Sautereau , his student and a former pupil
of Eugene Claude, in 1863, filling his life with joy.
Though remaining childless, they adopted Juliet, their niece, following
the death of her parents and whose career as a painter won many honours.
Changing to much larger compositions in 1873 on the advise of his peers,
Jean Charles began a new and critical phase in his career, introducing
animals and figures into his works and exhibiting at the Paris Salon from
1875 onwards.
This is the first of these large formatted pieces by Georget and the first
to be exhibited at the salon. In total, he exhibited a remarkable number
of 36 works.
He passed away in the winter of 1894 from a 'chill' contracted on one
of his early morning sojourns into the forest he loved and now rests in
the municipal cemetery of Dammarie Les Lys.
D Freeman
Bibliography
Benezet
Saur
This Summary by:
D Freeman a leading expert on the life and works of Georget.
Taken from the biography of Charles Jean Georget: 'When Paths Cross at Fontainebleau
In which this painting is illustrated.
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